Really, what other career field requires you to fight, and finagle, and sacrifice, and so on, just for a mediocre job? I see lots of IT jobs advertised that require a bachelor's degree, and experience, for $15 an hour. Even if you get that job, you will just be training your h1b replacement within two years.
Employers don't want Americans. The few jobs that can not be offshored are being filed by "guest workers." And after the election, the situation will get much worse. Both candidates strong support further glutting the field by drastically increasing the number of guest workers.
We might like to think that, now that the abuses are known, the problems with the program will be fixed.
Sorry folks, but it looks like these abuses have been well known for many years.
September 2000 Silicon Valley Uses Immigrant Engineers to Keep Salaries > High-skilled immigrant workers in Silicon Valley are being exploited by employers. Existing immigration law sets a cap on the number the H1-B visas the industry can use to hire immigrant engineers, so this year Silicon Valley electronics giants have been pushing for more Hl-B workers. While H1-B status laborers boost corporate bottom lines, there is a devastating effect on the workers themselves. http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/10-silicon-valley-uses-immigrant-engineers-to-keep-salaries/
February 2003 Is Anybody Out There? Is Anyone Listening? The H-1B recipients are often put in an exploitable position because if they lose their job, they are then deported back to their country of origin. http://www.rense.com/general35/wakeupNHwakeup.htm
America has forgotten that it built its success on the back of the geniuses that migrated there.
1) There are at least 24 different work visas in the USA. Some are geared towards allowing the truly exceptional to work in the USA, the H-1B is not such a visa. Most H-1B are average students, right out of college, who work cheaper than Americans.
2) A lot of H-1Bs have fake credentials. It's a fact, even India is aware of it.
3) The H-1B is classified as a non-immigration visa. H-1Bs are not immigrants.
Eliminating the H-1B visa would hardly deny the USA any "Geniuses."
Try to run ms-exchange on your linux server. Try to read an outlook 2007.pst file with outlook 2003, or outlook express, or anything except outlook 2007. Same thing with sharepoint.
With msft, everything is always about vendor lock-in
Google Apps work just as well on any platform, and with any applications.
Gmail works with web, thunderbird, even outlook. Gmail syncs with the google calendar just fine.
Having apps on a local server, and using thin-clients to access to those apps, might make sense. Your support people could use a vpn to access your server if they necessary.
But putting apps offsite, and using an internet connection to use your apps means significant problems with speed, reliability, and possible security. So why do it?
I hope you don't mind if I added you to my growing listing of recent graduates who can not find a job. You are the second person I have added just today. The dice discussion boards are filled with people in the same situation, here is a brief listing:
Can you believe that corporate CEOs has the gall to sit before congress and claim that there are sever shortages of US IT workers? The pop-media is flooded with articles about how IT jobs are recession proof, and the US IT field is red hot and growing faster than ever.
Would should employers hire US IT workers, when offshore labor is cheaper? Both candidates are strong supporters of allowing more guest workers.
The situation for US IT job seekers, and US IT workers, is worse than ever, and will go downhill even faster after the elections. Both candidates plan to further glut the market with guest workers.
If this this article is correct, the situation will get even worse. Thankfully, the article is purely speculative.
Bryant said he expects that the troubles on Wall Street will likely influence some students to switch majors in the coming months from business to other fields, including computer science. He also urges caution to those students.
Thank you for pointing this out. The article is laughably speculative i.e. "it's possible that more students could study CS instead of business." This article is nothing but a pop-media puff piece.
Let me guess, the closest you got to Solaris was seeing the OS name in some monitoring software?
Your guess is completely wrong. I worked on Solaris boxes, all over the world from CLI. Many of the boxes belonged to Sun's customers, Sun maintained them, but did not own them. Some of the boxes were over ten years old. But, many of the boxes where brand new. They all went down.
Nurses and techs get overtime, or comp time. Nurses and techs also get generous shift differentials. Teachers are unionized, and will walk out in the middle of a meeting if it's past 5:00 PM (I have know this to happen). Teachers also get vacation time up the wahzoo. Surgons may not get overtime, but it is not unusual for a surgon to earn over $500K/year, so it's hard for me to have too much sympathy.
I have seen many posts bragging 99.999999% uptime for Solaris.
But, I worked a temporary contract at Sun's Broomfield campus in Colorado, from Sept-2007 to Feb-2008. I monitored about 2000 Sun boxes. I saw those things go down all the time.
It used by 80% of US small businesses, and it only runs correctly on windows. QB is only a bfd in the US.
But that is just an example. My guess is that msft has special deals with many US companies, more so than with EU countries. The US is msft's primary market. A lot of US web-sites will only work correctly with msie.
Msft strong-arms Americans more then Europeans. To the point that, for almost all Americans, it just isn't worth it to use anything else.
Try finding responsible, capable people at a good rate when the employment rate is less than 8 or 9%. It's very, very hard to find capable people when none are available unless you're willing to spend an exorbitant amount of money.
Are you posting about the official unemployment rate, or the real unemployment rate?
Define "capable."
BTW: I can find "capable" people easily, with the current unemployment rate. You can always find "capable" people if you are willing to pay for it. I don't know what you consider excessive pay, but I see jobs for experience, college eduated, IT workers, for rates around $35K a year, all the time. Take a look at my salary survey:
According to a study cited by Bill Gates, in his testimony before the US congress, last March: every time an employer even requests an h1b, that creates five new jobs for Americans.
Because of this, Microsoft is lobbying congress to allow an unlimited number h1b guest workers into the US. It is unusual for msft to not get what it wants.
BTW: I read the study. I could find no mention anywhere of who funded the study, or who funds the think-tank who created the study.
For over a year now, I have been shaking my head in bewilderment, every time I read a post by a msft advocate claiming I we should immediately replace XP with Vista because: Vista is not really as horrible as all that.
Why the hell is that a reason to "upgrade?" I run W2K: no DRM, no need to buy new hardware, fast, stable, works with all my hw and sw, no fisher-price default interface.
At best, Vista is pointless, same goes for the newest version of Office.
The article was written on September 5 and claims that "HP is still hiring" which is certainly consistent with laying off 25K people. The claim "...won't expect to be big ones" with regards to IT layoffs is quite likely to be proven false in light of recent events.
"Overall technology employment is up in America and the wages associated with it are up," said John McCarthy, a vice president with Forrester Research.
Up from what? What do they consider an IT worker? How did they determine this?
Payrolls of computer and electronics manufacturers grew 5.1 percent from July to August
Assembly line work is considered IT? Isn't about 99% of electronics manufacturing done offshore?
Microsoft hired more than 11,000 additional workers in its fiscal year ending in June - the most in its 33-year history.
Were any of those workers US citizens? Or were they all offshore workers, and H-1Bs?
Slashdot Mirror
Really, what other career field requires you to fight, and finagle, and sacrifice, and so on, just for a mediocre job? I see lots of IT jobs advertised that require a bachelor's degree, and experience, for $15 an hour. Even if you get that job, you will just be training your h1b replacement within two years.
Employers don't want Americans. The few jobs that can not be offshored are being filed by "guest workers." And after the election, the situation will get much worse. Both candidates strong support further glutting the field by drastically increasing the number of guest workers.
Just a thought.
I could not help but notice how many posts from seeker.dice.com forums, and elsewhere, are of the same nature. Here are just a few recent examples:
http://techtoil.org/wiki/doku.php?id=articles:news_and_commentary
Makes me wonder if tech degrees are worth the time, money, and effort.
We might like to think that, now that the abuses are known, the problems with the program will be fixed.
Sorry folks, but it looks like these abuses have been well known for many years.
September 2000
Silicon Valley Uses Immigrant Engineers to Keep Salaries
> High-skilled immigrant workers in Silicon Valley are being exploited by employers. Existing immigration law sets a cap on the number the H1-B visas the industry can use to hire immigrant engineers, so this year Silicon Valley electronics giants have been pushing for more Hl-B workers. While H1-B status laborers boost corporate bottom lines, there is a devastating effect on the workers themselves.
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/10-silicon-valley-uses-immigrant-engineers-to-keep-salaries/
2002
Enron and the H-1B American Worker Replacement Program
> H-1B visa holders are often compared to indentured servants for U.S. corporations.
http://www.americanreformation.org/Articles/GlennJackson/EnronandH1BVisas.htm
February 2003
Is Anybody Out There? Is Anyone Listening?
The H-1B recipients are often put in an exploitable position because if they lose their job, they are then deported back to their country of origin.
http://www.rense.com/general35/wakeupNHwakeup.htm
1) There are at least 24 different work visas in the USA. Some are geared towards allowing the truly exceptional to work in the USA, the H-1B is not such a visa. Most H-1B are average students, right out of college, who work cheaper than Americans.
2) A lot of H-1Bs have fake credentials. It's a fact, even India is aware of it.
3) The H-1B is classified as a non-immigration visa. H-1Bs are not immigrants.
Eliminating the H-1B visa would hardly deny the USA any "Geniuses."
The US federal government has successfully used gmail to handle 38,000 accounts, spread across 86 agencies; and saved a substantial amount of money.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/151399/gov_waste_google_apps.html?tk=rss_news
> What more do you need?
Although you may not need it: google calendar also integrates with thunderbird, and ms-outlook, and syncs with your blackberry calendar.
You can also schedule an appointment using your cellphone using the Jott service:
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/12/05/jott-to-your-google-calendar/
Try to run ms-exchange on your linux server. Try to read an outlook 2007 .pst file with outlook 2003, or outlook express, or anything except outlook 2007. Same thing with sharepoint.
With msft, everything is always about vendor lock-in
Google Apps work just as well on any platform, and with any applications.
Gmail works with web, thunderbird, even outlook. Gmail syncs with the google calendar just fine.
You can use use google mail with Mac, PC, Linux, Solaris, whatever. You can use gmail with Outlook, Thunderbird, Blackberry, or web based.
Google does not care what OS you use, or which appliactions.
Microsoft only works with Microsoft.
Who wants to spend all the time, money, and effort, to get a STEM degree, just to be training your H-1B replacement two years later.
Both presidential candidates want to increase the number of H-1B, and the L-1 and OPT visa already allow unlimited guest workers.
Unless you want third world wages, stay away from STEM. If you are smart enough to get a STEM degree - go into medicine.
I thought the reason that so called "guest workers" were flooding into the USA was because the wages in those world sweat shops were so horrid.
Having apps on a local server, and using thin-clients to access to those apps, might make sense. Your support people could use a vpn to access your server if they necessary.
But putting apps offsite, and using an internet connection to use your apps means significant problems with speed, reliability, and possible security. So why do it?
I hope you don't mind if I added you to my growing listing of recent graduates who can not find a job. You are the second person I have added just today. The dice discussion boards are filled with people in the same situation, here is a brief listing:
http://techtoil.org/wiki/doku.php?id=articles:news_and_commentary
Can you believe that corporate CEOs has the gall to sit before congress and claim that there are sever shortages of US IT workers? The pop-media is flooded with articles about how IT jobs are recession proof, and the US IT field is red hot and growing faster than ever.
Would should employers hire US IT workers, when offshore labor is cheaper? Both candidates are strong supporters of allowing more guest workers.
The situation for US IT job seekers, and US IT workers, is worse than ever, and will go downhill even faster after the elections. Both candidates plan to further glut the market with guest workers.
If this this article is correct, the situation will get even worse.
Thankfully, the article is purely speculative.
Thank you for pointing this out. The article is laughably speculative i.e. "it's possible that more students could study CS instead of business." This article is nothing but a pop-media puff piece.
Your guess is completely wrong. I worked on Solaris boxes, all over the world from CLI. Many of the boxes belonged to Sun's customers, Sun maintained them, but did not own them. Some of the boxes were over ten years old. But, many of the boxes where brand new. They all went down.
Nurses and techs get overtime, or comp time. Nurses and techs also get generous shift differentials. Teachers are unionized, and will walk out in the middle of a meeting if it's past 5:00 PM (I have know this to happen). Teachers also get vacation time up the wahzoo. Surgons may not get overtime, but it is not unusual for a surgon to earn over $500K/year, so it's hard for me to have too much sympathy.
I have seen many posts bragging 99.999999% uptime for Solaris.
But, I worked a temporary contract at Sun's Broomfield campus in Colorado, from Sept-2007 to Feb-2008. I monitored about 2000 Sun boxes. I saw those things go down all the time.
I suppose if Sun can sell hw, os, and database; Oracle has to say they can do the same thing.
I can remember when it was normal for the same company to provide all hw and sw.
It used by 80% of US small businesses, and it only runs correctly on windows. QB is only a bfd in the US.
But that is just an example. My guess is that msft has special deals with many US companies, more so than with EU countries. The US is msft's primary market. A lot of US web-sites will only work correctly with msie.
Msft strong-arms Americans more then Europeans. To the point that, for almost all Americans, it just isn't worth it to use anything else.
Are you posting about the official unemployment rate, or the real unemployment rate?
Define "capable."
BTW: I can find "capable" people easily, with the current unemployment rate. You can always find "capable" people if you are willing to pay for it. I don't know what you consider excessive pay, but I see jobs for experience, college eduated, IT workers, for rates around $35K a year, all the time. Take a look at my salary survey:
http://techtoil.org/wiki/doku.php?id=salary_survey
I can accept that. But, why are all the big tech corps claiming that we need eliminate caps on h1b visas due to sever shortages of tech workers?
How can we have sever shortages of tech workers, and record unemployment of tech workers at the same time? It does not seem to add up.
According to a study cited by Bill Gates, in his testimony before the US congress, last March: every time an employer even requests an h1b, that creates five new jobs for Americans.
Because of this, Microsoft is lobbying congress to allow an unlimited number h1b guest workers into the US. It is unusual for msft to not get what it wants.
BTW: I read the study. I could find no mention anywhere of who funded the study, or who funds the think-tank who created the study.
For over a year now, I have been shaking my head in bewilderment, every time I read a post by a msft advocate claiming I we should immediately replace XP with Vista because: Vista is not really as horrible as all that.
Why the hell is that a reason to "upgrade?" I run W2K: no DRM, no need to buy new hardware, fast, stable, works with all my hw and sw, no fisher-price default interface.
At best, Vista is pointless, same goes for the newest version of Office.
The article was written on September 5 and claims that "HP is still hiring" which is certainly consistent with laying off 25K people. The claim "...won't expect to be big ones" with regards to IT layoffs is quite likely to be proven false in light of recent events.
Up from what? What do they consider an IT worker? How did they determine this?
Assembly line work is considered IT? Isn't about 99% of electronics manufacturing done offshore?
Were any of those workers US citizens? Or were they all offshore workers, and H-1Bs?