In free market place, a sustained labor shortages can not possibly exist. In fact, the very idea does not even make sense. In a truly free market: if demand starts to exceed supply, then prices will go up, which will cause supply will go up with the prices, thereby leveling out the equation.
For example: if there were a shortage of Perl developers, then wages for Perl developers would go up, thereby attracting more Perl developers. A long term shortage would be impossible.
SPOT-ON!!! But what's the problem here? THEY DON'T WANT TO PAY MORE. They want the labor they need at a price THEY dictate, NOT the free market. That's why the H1B visa exists.
I'm not a CTO. But I am involved in hiring some of my small company's IT staff.
There is a shortage. Especially of Software Developers.
From my experience there's a big shortage of companies that want to pay to attract good people.
We're about 40-50 mins from Boston, MA. And we can't find a Perl developer worth our time. We can't even get them to the phase where we discuss salary, they're just not in the area, or they're just not applying. We can barely find someone worth an interview, and we have tried taking many chances on not-so-stellar resumes.
My experience with companies in MA is that they all pay really poorly because a lot of them seem to already like H1B visa (i.e., cheap) labor. Tell us please: how much is your willing to pay to get someone to live in an ultra-dense, ultra-expensive, ultra-high-tax state?
We like the Open source technologies we use, and believe using Perl gives us an advantage to rapidly develop our software. We've invested heavily into Perl + Linux, and it would take a major restructuring to change our technology and development process to accommodate the glut of cheap developers that do.net + java.
If you can't find Perl people, I think your attempts to find.Net or Java people will not go any better.
I realize that not using the 'popular' development languages hinders our applicant pool.
No, what hinders your applicant pool is most likely what you're willing to pay.
We've even resorted to taking anyone developer intelligent enough to pick up a new programming language. We just can't find them.
You mean you can't find them FOR WHAT YOU WANT TO PAY. Pay them and they will come.
It's a tough market. The jobs are there, but the applicants unfortunately aren't.
The jobs that don't pay anything are there, and nobody's taking them because people who are smart enough to be (good) software developers can find other jobs (even outside the IT field) that pay better.
And while we're at it, let's remind folks that a `competitive` wage means by definition that you're paying the same as everyone else. That won't necessarily land you someone who's really good at what they do. You want that kind of person? You'd better be willing to pay a lot more than a `competitive` wage.
I always laugh when I see people put up posts saying `we can't find any applicants` as if they think they're entitled to applicants just for hanging out a `help wanted` sign. If you're willing to pay enough you'll get people, and if you're willing to pay a lot I claim you'll get (and be able to keep) really good people. The problem is that corporate management doesn't think that way... and doesn't want to.
And before we get too lose with the `racist` and `xenophobic` terms, we might to well to remember that the reason that the Indians and the Mexicans want to come here is that the fatcats who run the corporate entities in this country still (have to) treat the people here better than their fatcat counterparts have to treat the peons in India or Mexico. That's because there's a whole lot more really, really poor people in those two countries that the elites can prey apon with no consequence. When that's the case in this country it will be pretty much the same.
The shortage is of cheap workers who have the experience that the companies want who are willing to work for what the companies want to pay. Pay them and they will come.
H1B visa holders do push wages down. These people are nearly slaves.
The worst thing is that, from my experience, they're nearly always incompetent or certainly less competent as Americans... they just cost a lot less, so the companies still rather hire three of them than one American, hoping that one of the three (or four or five) has a clue.
I'm saying offer citizenship to the best and brightest.
I'm saying let immigrants play the lottery and come that way so that we don't discriminate against anyone wanting to come here. Let's save the best and brightest Americans from business and law schools by allowing engineering salaries to come up to demand without any foreign labor subsidies.
Some of these people will create start-up companies. They might even hire you.
I'd rather we leave starting companies in America to Americans; you know, like me. I've had my own business since 1995 and would like to see colleagues who are as talented have the opportunity to do likewise.
You're right though, certainly a lot of Indian immigrants do start companies. According to Lou Dobbs, 75+% of H1B visas go to Indian companies here in America who are looking to then sub the H1B visa holders out to American companies here in America. A very good reason NOT to allow what you're advocating.
I love these arguments. "We can't let smart people in, Americans will have to compete with them!"
I love people who make simplistic arguments like this (typically liberals or foreigners who are here in the U.S. and desperately want to stay without wanting to say so publicly). The point is that American citizens of all types should not have to deal with their standards of living being pushed down by imported foreign labor, legal or not, regardless of whether they're smart or not. That's part of the rights of being a citizen. Nobody has a problem competing with other smart people, so long as they're American.
The fact is that a lot of people from countries like India or Bangladesh will work at much lower wages in much worse conditions here in the U.S. simply to escape their home countries (I've seen this many times first-hand; my neighbor is from Bangladesh and he'll tell you this very openly). Again, American citizens should not be forced to compete in the workplace with these kinds of people (despite the fact that corporate America loves people who are desperate for their jobs).
Guess what: there is no fixed pool of jobs that these foreigners are taking jobs from. More people in your country means more jobs, whether the extra people are immigrants or native-born.
Guess what: your absolutely incorrect (and you provide nothing to prove otherwise) according to both basic economics and recent history. Ask someone who was in the IT business in 2000-2002 how many "more jobs" there were after the government allowed an ever-expanding number of H1B visa holders into the country to work in the IT business during the late 90's (and what Uncle Bill Gates is pushing again for now). It's all about corporate profit, not immigration.
At any point in time in ANY industry there are typically a certain number of jobs to be had. It's all part of supply and demand: more supply of labor, less demand (read less compensation). You might want to take a basic course in Economics.
Your argument is especially invalid when you consider that these grad students are the cream of the crop.
And what 'crop' would that be exactly? In fact, foreign grad students are typically not the "cream of the crop" in their own countries, because those people get educated there. It's the also-rans who typically have to leave the country to go for a graduate degree. The real "cream of the (American) crop" leave college after a BS degree because they typically want to make money rather than deal with 1-3 more years of university nonsense, plus the fact that monetarily a grad degree doesn't really always make sense. (So how do you fix that? You get corporate America to PAY MORE for grad degrees, which they don't currently have to do with a steady stream of foreign grad students coming out of American universities.)
When I was a senior the EE department used to send people around to the senior classes and practically beg people to consider becoming grad students. Everyone I know said pretty much the same thing: "Let's see... go and make money or stick around school and live like a pauper and have to sniff some professor's rear end to get a grad degree? SEE YA!".
My experience was that grad students are typically people who, while bright, are uniquely willing to submit to a professor's demands and are nearly always unqualified to TA or teach because of a very, VERY poor mastery of the English language.
How fucking stupid can you be to think that having more smart people in your country will affect the economy in a bad way?
About as stupid (and uninformed) as you are, I'd say. Just for your further education, the use of vulgarities in argument is a dead giveaway sign that you have nothing of substance to use to support your assertions. Are you a foreigner here in the U.S. on a visa or a liberal by chance?
You must be of native american heritage then..?
There are no "native" Americans... only some people who've been here longer than others. I was born here from parents who were born here (and were legal citizens, unlike some) and that's native enough to make immigration policy. Like it or not, us "natives" who are already here have the right to determine who else gets to come here or not and for what reasons.
once foreigners are allowed in and get jobs, they will be paying taxes just like you and will be supporting schools, building freeways, and whatever the government decides to do with tax money.
The basic fact that they're allowed in and get jobs that means that people who are already here will either be a) unemployed or, b) paid at lower wages. That means that for every foreigner who's allowed in someone here is either not paying taxes or is paying less because they're getting paid less. (Keep in mind also that the income tax curve bends sharply at higher wages, so by dropping a professional salary even 20-25% you lose a great deal in income tax revenue.) That's simply the law of supply and demand, and it does not add up to the same thing in a tax-revenue sense. The only people who really benefit are the a) foreigners who want to get out of their own countries and b) the companies who get to pay less to get people to work for them.
how are they then taking away from you?
See above. Better yet, have a conversation with someone in the IT business who was working (or trying to be) in the 2000-2002 dot-com post-crash. For every foreigner that comes here that's lower demand (and resulting compensation) for someone who's already here.
in fact, most international students in u.s. colleges have to pay full tuition, sometimes 7 or 8 times higher than what what americans pay.
Even at that ratio they pay nowhere near the fixed costs that had to be paid to establish and staff the school over its collective history. If you add up all the contributions that native taxpayers make over the course of their working careers to fund education, at a 7x-8x ratio or more that's still a very good deal for foreigners.
in other words, they are subsidizing *your* education. again, how is this bad for americans?
Again, see above. Americans already have paid all the taxes/funds required to establish/operate American university centers in the first place. If foreigners want the education, let them do likewise in their own countries.
Do these foreign students pay taxes in the US? If so, how long did they or do they pay? Is it a net gain for the US or a loss? If a loss then why is it done?
Because it provides a stream of cheap technical labor for U.S. companies who want to drive their costs (salaries) down. Also professors like to abuse grad students, and foreigners trying to immigrate from a toilet country are a lot more willing to submit to anal sex with their graduate advisor than are American students.
We make it hard for them to become citizens. These are the people we should want most.
The people we should want most are the citizens of this country who've paid taxes to support the public universities and who support the companies and economy that allow the private universities a context to survive and thrive. It should be impossible for foreigners to come and study here. Let them be educated in their own countries after their own economies make the investment in institutions of higher learning. That way if those countries want to compete with us let them compete completely rather than using our own system to educate their people.
Having them leave, then compete with us, is not good.
Having them stay here and underbid Americans for jobs is worse. The reason there's such a stream of foreigners in engineering and the sciences is that American companies have lobbied the government to allow a steady stream of cheap, imported labor. They shouldn't be allowed in the door in the first place.
It always gives me a chuckle that these databases when maintained by government give libertarians the cold sweats, but private businesses *built* on making a profit off of mining and selling information about you seem to be a-okay.
Point well taken, but have you ever tried filing a class-action lawsuit (or any other kind of lawsuit) against the government? Businesses built on making a profit want to do just that and don't want to be embroiled in legal proceedings that drain both their reputations and, more importantly, their wallets. Plus, if they lose a big one, they have to deal with the government then cracking down on their business practices with new restrictive legislation AFTER they have to pay out all the $$$$ to plaintiffs and lawyers. If the government gets dinged they just wave their hands and throw your tax money down a different hole.
Before the flame begins, note that I said "in this one case".
Your point is well taken; however, I claim that hiring someone with a PhD is far different than hiring a more typical technical person, say for instance a software developer (for which there are greatly far more slots than PhDs). I've gotten enough recruiting calls to know what companies are using H1B labor, which recruiters are doing the recruiting for them and what it is they want to pay potential candidates. The recruiters are always Indian, can barely speak English, and think they're going to keep you on the phone for a 10-minute technical interview before they'll even tell you what the slot their recruiting for pays (typically like $30-40/hr, which is less than any salaried job that someone from this country with a B.S. degree and almost no experience can get). Considering most really good J2EE developers in my neck of the woods (where the cost of living is the highest in the country) get paid $100-200/hr even where government clearances are not required, I'd say it's perfectly accurate to say that across the industry H1Bs are depressing wages to a great extent.
Where are the high paying jobs for those who are good in math and science? I've heard about math and science shortages for almost two decades now, and I was wondering what high salary/high demand jobs have resulted from these shortages.
Well, actually very few thanks to H1B/L1 visas and American businesses deciding that they don't want to pay free market rates for native technical labor (although it's just dandy for their products). Whenever the pool of available native tech talent starts to get the slightest bit tight they go to Congress screaming "We need more imported tech labor!!!". Of course the truth is that they don't need more imported tech labor, they just want it given they can pay imported labor far less (especially in urban areas where the cost of living is high, where a great majority of tech jobs tend to be today) and can keep them captive (i.e., the imported labor can't quit to find a better job/more pay once they're here without risking their visas and associated deportation). It's all basically a scam (note the current Charlie Foxtrot in progress regarding the proposed immigration law overhaul) to keep business fatcats from paying people market value for their technical skills.
So what's been the glaring end result of these visa policies? The pool of native tech talent continues to drop because nobody wants to work for artificially suppressed wages (i.e., the free market at work), so the businesses then scream even louder to Congress for more imported tech labor to thwart what are basically the effects of the free market further depressing the outlook for native techies. Technical work has now gone the same way as textiles and agriculture in that it's a trade for a dedicated, cheap labor pool.
Most science majors I know actually make less than teachers (in Texas teachers make $38-40K to start for nine months of work).
Rest assured if the business types have their way it will continue to be so; do yourself a favor and go to business or law school.
Someone should tell Ted "I love that pork! Oink! Oink!" Stevens that the Internet is more like an electronic bridge to anywhere as opposed to a $300 million dollar physical bridge to nowhere.
Essentially this will come down to a management problem. At some point, people will avoid IT as a career altogether. And when that happens, demand will go up for people, more money will be offered, and people will hold their noses and come back.
WRONG; what will happen (as is currently happening) is that people like Bill Gates will go to Congress (or their respective governments) whining that they need more imported (read cheap, captive) H1B/L1 visa (i.e., imported) labor to offset the "shortage of IT workers" (read too many people who know an IT/technology career means getting screwed in the ass financially compared to other careers while people like Uncle Bill become mega-rich at their expense). IT is treated by 3rd world labor for a very good reason... in a lot of commercial companies it is.
The plain truth is that companies don't want to pay people who have the intellectual ability to do the kind of work required by an IT career market rates because these companies have gotten used to the labor cost environment put in place in the late 90's/early 00's by outsourcing, importing cheap visa labor and by the labor churn of the post-dot.com crash. Now that the IT labor market is again becoming tighter (both by experienced people leaving and by the refusal of new people to come into the labor market in favor of better careers) we get the "we need unlimited sources of cheap, oops I meant visa labor" from Uncle Billy and his ilk. They don't care about women in the field, they just care about having enough cheap captives. People (both who have been in the field and people who are considering it) know this to be the case after the last decade, so they're not going to come back if they find better alternatives.
Keep in mind though that it works on the other side as well; I've found in several positions that people get taken aback when (as a man) you mention to people at work that you're over 30/35/40 and don't have any children (or worse, are not married). I had a female colleague (who also is not married nor has any children) tell me once that in her experience employers/management love to hear employees mention one or more of the following:
a) they're getting/got married,
b) are buying/bought a house,
c) are having a/another child
The real reason of course is that the employer/management isn't really happy for you; they're happy for them, because all of these occurrences give them more reason to think you (financially) need your job even more than before and thus are in less of a position to accept unfair expectations on their part/demand more compensation on your part/leave your current employer. It's also been my experience that people who don't have "socially complex" lives often don't get promoted into positions of responsibility because they're considered by management "not to have as much at stake". The real issue is of course that they know they can't really "squeeze" someone who can flip them the bird and walk out the door.
There's demand, but there's also a limit to how much will be paid. So it is all about the "cheap labor".
Spot on. There's a ton of demand... for people who will work for what companies want to pay. Given the widespread and continued abuse of the H1B/L1 visa system, too many of these companies have gotten themselves addicted to cheap imported labor and don't feel obliged to pay market-driven wages (because the free technical labor market is effectively usurpted by the issuing of technical visas). I get calls all the time from recruiters looking to staff Verizon here in northern Virginia (one of the most, if not the most, expensive areas in the country to live in); the recruiters are always Indian and always act shocked when the first question I hit them with is "How much are they willing to pay?". The hourly rates they quote are less than what I made nearly 15+ years ago when I was first out of school living in a much cheaper locale. It's all about the money.
"I'm all for ditching the H1-B system and allowing full, unlimited immigration to highly skilled workers."
So, in other words, you want to allow the labor market to pay no more for "highly skilled" workers as it does for low skilled workers.
You do realize, of course, that's exactly why there's a "shortage" of "highly skilled" workers in the first place (although in reality there's really a shortage of "highly skilled" workers who will work for what companies think those people ought to be paid)... so your solution only adds to population growth in exchange for lowering compensation requirements for businesses. That in turn only discourages people from entering "highly skilled" careers, thus feeding the need for more "unlimited" immigration of "highly skilled" workers... and on and on.
Funny how they don't look to allow "full, unlimited immigration of highly skilled workers" like lawyers.
And yes, the number of "Wallys" has increased dramatically (even people who were doing great with leadership are left to wander as "Wally"s now). Also, people who make plenty of noise about what they do and the value they put in without actually *doing* anything has increased, and those people get a lot more credit and such than those who actually *do*. Cynicism among everyone else not merely dicking around or beating their chests is at an all time high, motivation on the ground. This is more like everywhere I end up working.
This is what happens to the job market when compensation is artificially limited by immigration like H1B/L1 visas. For several years after the dot-com bust companies got used to not having to pay for any kind of tech help and letting people fight over who got slots. Now these same companies (like MicroFlaccid) who are crying to the government to let in more cheap labor are having to deal with the fact that they can't get talented, motivated people for what they're currently willing to pay. The result? A building full of Wallys who show up and take their pay and don't do much else. Until the IT industry begins to deal with the fact that the dot-com bust is over and the pool of good IT talent has dried up (for the current salaries being paid), Wally's all they're gonna get.
Hey Uncle Bill, reach into that fat wallet and pull out more money if you want better people!
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In free market place, a sustained labor shortages can not possibly exist. In fact, the very idea does not even make sense. In a truly free market: if demand starts to exceed supply, then prices will go up, which will cause supply will go up with the prices, thereby leveling out the equation.
For example: if there were a shortage of Perl developers, then wages for Perl developers would go up, thereby attracting more Perl developers. A long term shortage would be impossible.
SPOT-ON!!! But what's the problem here? THEY DON'T WANT TO PAY MORE. They want the labor they need at a price THEY dictate, NOT the free market. That's why the H1B visa exists.
I'm not a CTO. But I am involved in hiring some of my small company's IT staff.
There is a shortage. Especially of Software Developers.
From my experience there's a big shortage of companies that want to pay to attract good people.
We're about 40-50 mins from Boston, MA. And we can't find a Perl developer worth our time. We can't even get them to the phase where we discuss salary, they're just not in the area, or they're just not applying. We can barely find someone worth an interview, and we have tried taking many chances on not-so-stellar resumes.
My experience with companies in MA is that they all pay really poorly because a lot of them seem to already like H1B visa (i.e., cheap) labor. Tell us please: how much is your willing to pay to get someone to live in an ultra-dense, ultra-expensive, ultra-high-tax state?
We like the Open source technologies we use, and believe using Perl gives us an advantage to rapidly develop our software. We've invested heavily into Perl + Linux, and it would take a major restructuring to change our technology and development process to accommodate the glut of cheap developers that do .net + java.
If you can't find Perl people, I think your attempts to find .Net or Java people will not go any better.
I realize that not using the 'popular' development languages hinders our applicant pool.
No, what hinders your applicant pool is most likely what you're willing to pay.
We've even resorted to taking anyone developer intelligent enough to pick up a new programming language. We just can't find them.
You mean you can't find them FOR WHAT YOU WANT TO PAY. Pay them and they will come.
It's a tough market. The jobs are there, but the applicants unfortunately aren't.
The jobs that don't pay anything are there, and nobody's taking them because people who are smart enough to be (good) software developers can find other jobs (even outside the IT field) that pay better.
SPOT-ON.
... and doesn't want to.
And while we're at it, let's remind folks that a `competitive` wage means by definition that you're paying the same as everyone else. That won't necessarily land you someone who's really good at what they do. You want that kind of person? You'd better be willing to pay a lot more than a `competitive` wage.
I always laugh when I see people put up posts saying `we can't find any applicants` as if they think they're entitled to applicants just for hanging out a `help wanted` sign. If you're willing to pay enough you'll get people, and if you're willing to pay a lot I claim you'll get (and be able to keep) really good people. The problem is that corporate management doesn't think that way
And before we get too lose with the `racist` and `xenophobic` terms, we might to well to remember that the reason that the Indians and the Mexicans want to come here is that the fatcats who run the corporate entities in this country still (have to) treat the people here better than their fatcat counterparts have to treat the peons in India or Mexico. That's because there's a whole lot more really, really poor people in those two countries that the elites can prey apon with no consequence. When that's the case in this country it will be pretty much the same.
Very, VERY well put. ;)
Probably call it R++.
The shortage is of cheap workers who have the experience that the companies want who are willing to work for what the companies want to pay. Pay them and they will come.
A very good point! ;)
The worst thing is that, from my experience, they're nearly always incompetent or certainly less competent as Americans
I'm saying offer citizenship to the best and brightest.
I'm saying let immigrants play the lottery and come that way so that we don't discriminate against anyone wanting to come here. Let's save the best and brightest Americans from business and law schools by allowing engineering salaries to come up to demand without any foreign labor subsidies.
Some of these people will create start-up companies. They might even hire you.
I'd rather we leave starting companies in America to Americans; you know, like me. I've had my own business since 1995 and would like to see colleagues who are as talented have the opportunity to do likewise.
You're right though, certainly a lot of Indian immigrants do start companies. According to Lou Dobbs, 75+% of H1B visas go to Indian companies here in America who are looking to then sub the H1B visa holders out to American companies here in America. A very good reason NOT to allow what you're advocating.
I love these arguments. "We can't let smart people in, Americans will have to compete with them!"
I love people who make simplistic arguments like this (typically liberals or foreigners who are here in the U.S. and desperately want to stay without wanting to say so publicly). The point is that American citizens of all types should not have to deal with their standards of living being pushed down by imported foreign labor, legal or not, regardless of whether they're smart or not. That's part of the rights of being a citizen. Nobody has a problem competing with other smart people, so long as they're American.
The fact is that a lot of people from countries like India or Bangladesh will work at much lower wages in much worse conditions here in the U.S. simply to escape their home countries (I've seen this many times first-hand; my neighbor is from Bangladesh and he'll tell you this very openly). Again, American citizens should not be forced to compete in the workplace with these kinds of people (despite the fact that corporate America loves people who are desperate for their jobs).
Guess what: there is no fixed pool of jobs that these foreigners are taking jobs from. More people in your country means more jobs, whether the extra people are immigrants or native-born.
Guess what: your absolutely incorrect (and you provide nothing to prove otherwise) according to both basic economics and recent history. Ask someone who was in the IT business in 2000-2002 how many "more jobs" there were after the government allowed an ever-expanding number of H1B visa holders into the country to work in the IT business during the late 90's (and what Uncle Bill Gates is pushing again for now). It's all about corporate profit, not immigration.
At any point in time in ANY industry there are typically a certain number of jobs to be had. It's all part of supply and demand: more supply of labor, less demand (read less compensation). You might want to take a basic course in Economics.
Your argument is especially invalid when you consider that these grad students are the cream of the crop.
And what 'crop' would that be exactly? In fact, foreign grad students are typically not the "cream of the crop" in their own countries, because those people get educated there. It's the also-rans who typically have to leave the country to go for a graduate degree. The real "cream of the (American) crop" leave college after a BS degree because they typically want to make money rather than deal with 1-3 more years of university nonsense, plus the fact that monetarily a grad degree doesn't really always make sense. (So how do you fix that? You get corporate America to PAY MORE for grad degrees, which they don't currently have to do with a steady stream of foreign grad students coming out of American universities.)
... go and make money or stick around school and live like a pauper and have to sniff some professor's rear end to get a grad degree? SEE YA!".
When I was a senior the EE department used to send people around to the senior classes and practically beg people to consider becoming grad students. Everyone I know said pretty much the same thing: "Let's see
My experience was that grad students are typically people who, while bright, are uniquely willing to submit to a professor's demands and are nearly always unqualified to TA or teach because of a very, VERY poor mastery of the English language.
How fucking stupid can you be to think that having more smart people in your country will affect the economy in a bad way?
About as stupid (and uninformed) as you are, I'd say. Just for your further education, the use of vulgarities in argument is a dead giveaway sign that you have nothing of substance to use to support your assertions. Are you a foreigner here in the U.S. on a visa or a liberal by chance?
There are no "native" Americans
The basic fact that they're allowed in and get jobs that means that people who are already here will either be a) unemployed or, b) paid at lower wages. That means that for every foreigner who's allowed in someone here is either not paying taxes or is paying less because they're getting paid less. (Keep in mind also that the income tax curve bends sharply at higher wages, so by dropping a professional salary even 20-25% you lose a great deal in income tax revenue.) That's simply the law of supply and demand, and it does not add up to the same thing in a tax-revenue sense. The only people who really benefit are the a) foreigners who want to get out of their own countries and b) the companies who get to pay less to get people to work for them.
how are they then taking away from you?
See above. Better yet, have a conversation with someone in the IT business who was working (or trying to be) in the 2000-2002 dot-com post-crash. For every foreigner that comes here that's lower demand (and resulting compensation) for someone who's already here.
in fact, most international students in u.s. colleges have to pay full tuition, sometimes 7 or 8 times higher than what what americans pay.
Even at that ratio they pay nowhere near the fixed costs that had to be paid to establish and staff the school over its collective history. If you add up all the contributions that native taxpayers make over the course of their working careers to fund education, at a 7x-8x ratio or more that's still a very good deal for foreigners.
in other words, they are subsidizing *your* education. again, how is this bad for americans?
Again, see above. Americans already have paid all the taxes/funds required to establish/operate American university centers in the first place. If foreigners want the education, let them do likewise in their own countries.
Haven't you heard? Uncle Bill's not making enough money.
Because it provides a stream of cheap technical labor for U.S. companies who want to drive their costs (salaries) down. Also professors like to abuse grad students, and foreigners trying to immigrate from a toilet country are a lot more willing to submit to anal sex with their graduate advisor than are American students.
Dude, you are SPOT on!
Having them leave, then compete with us, is not good.
Having them stay here and underbid Americans for jobs is worse. The reason there's such a stream of foreigners in engineering and the sciences is that American companies have lobbied the government to allow a steady stream of cheap, imported labor. They shouldn't be allowed in the door in the first place.
Point well taken, but have you ever tried filing a class-action lawsuit (or any other kind of lawsuit) against the government? Businesses built on making a profit want to do just that and don't want to be embroiled in legal proceedings that drain both their reputations and, more importantly, their wallets. Plus, if they lose a big one, they have to deal with the government then cracking down on their business practices with new restrictive legislation AFTER they have to pay out all the $$$$ to plaintiffs and lawyers. If the government gets dinged they just wave their hands and throw your tax money down a different hole.
Before the flame begins, note that I said "in this one case".
Your point is well taken; however, I claim that hiring someone with a PhD is far different than hiring a more typical technical person, say for instance a software developer (for which there are greatly far more slots than PhDs). I've gotten enough recruiting calls to know what companies are using H1B labor, which recruiters are doing the recruiting for them and what it is they want to pay potential candidates. The recruiters are always Indian, can barely speak English, and think they're going to keep you on the phone for a 10-minute technical interview before they'll even tell you what the slot their recruiting for pays (typically like $30-40/hr, which is less than any salaried job that someone from this country with a B.S. degree and almost no experience can get). Considering most really good J2EE developers in my neck of the woods (where the cost of living is the highest in the country) get paid $100-200/hr even where government clearances are not required, I'd say it's perfectly accurate to say that across the industry H1Bs are depressing wages to a great extent.
Where are the high paying jobs for those who are good in math and science? I've heard about math and science shortages for almost two decades now, and I was wondering what high salary/high demand jobs have resulted from these shortages.
Well, actually very few thanks to H1B/L1 visas and American businesses deciding that they don't want to pay free market rates for native technical labor (although it's just dandy for their products). Whenever the pool of available native tech talent starts to get the slightest bit tight they go to Congress screaming "We need more imported tech labor!!!". Of course the truth is that they don't need more imported tech labor, they just want it given they can pay imported labor far less (especially in urban areas where the cost of living is high, where a great majority of tech jobs tend to be today) and can keep them captive (i.e., the imported labor can't quit to find a better job/more pay once they're here without risking their visas and associated deportation). It's all basically a scam (note the current Charlie Foxtrot in progress regarding the proposed immigration law overhaul) to keep business fatcats from paying people market value for their technical skills.
So what's been the glaring end result of these visa policies? The pool of native tech talent continues to drop because nobody wants to work for artificially suppressed wages (i.e., the free market at work), so the businesses then scream even louder to Congress for more imported tech labor to thwart what are basically the effects of the free market further depressing the outlook for native techies. Technical work has now gone the same way as textiles and agriculture in that it's a trade for a dedicated, cheap labor pool.
Most science majors I know actually make less than teachers (in Texas teachers make $38-40K to start for nine months of work).
Rest assured if the business types have their way it will continue to be so; do yourself a favor and go to business or law school.
Someone should tell Ted "I love that pork! Oink! Oink!" Stevens that the Internet is more like an electronic bridge to anywhere as opposed to a $300 million dollar physical bridge to nowhere.
Essentially this will come down to a management problem. At some point, people will avoid IT as a career altogether. And when that happens, demand will go up for people, more money will be offered, and people will hold their noses and come back.
... in a lot of commercial companies it is.
WRONG; what will happen (as is currently happening) is that people like Bill Gates will go to Congress (or their respective governments) whining that they need more imported (read cheap, captive) H1B/L1 visa (i.e., imported) labor to offset the "shortage of IT workers" (read too many people who know an IT/technology career means getting screwed in the ass financially compared to other careers while people like Uncle Bill become mega-rich at their expense). IT is treated by 3rd world labor for a very good reason
The plain truth is that companies don't want to pay people who have the intellectual ability to do the kind of work required by an IT career market rates because these companies have gotten used to the labor cost environment put in place in the late 90's/early 00's by outsourcing, importing cheap visa labor and by the labor churn of the post-dot.com crash. Now that the IT labor market is again becoming tighter (both by experienced people leaving and by the refusal of new people to come into the labor market in favor of better careers) we get the "we need unlimited sources of cheap, oops I meant visa labor" from Uncle Billy and his ilk. They don't care about women in the field, they just care about having enough cheap captives. People (both who have been in the field and people who are considering it) know this to be the case after the last decade, so they're not going to come back if they find better alternatives.
Here, here ... well said.
Keep in mind though that it works on the other side as well; I've found in several positions that people get taken aback when (as a man) you mention to people at work that you're over 30/35/40 and don't have any children (or worse, are not married). I had a female colleague (who also is not married nor has any children) tell me once that in her experience employers/management love to hear employees mention one or more of the following:
a) they're getting/got married,
b) are buying/bought a house,
c) are having a/another child
The real reason of course is that the employer/management isn't really happy for you; they're happy for them, because all of these occurrences give them more reason to think you (financially) need your job even more than before and thus are in less of a position to accept unfair expectations on their part/demand more compensation on your part/leave your current employer. It's also been my experience that people who don't have "socially complex" lives often don't get promoted into positions of responsibility because they're considered by management "not to have as much at stake". The real issue is of course that they know they can't really "squeeze" someone who can flip them the bird and walk out the door.
There's demand, but there's also a limit to how much will be paid. So it is all about the "cheap labor".
... for people who will work for what companies want to pay. Given the widespread and continued abuse of the H1B/L1 visa system, too many of these companies have gotten themselves addicted to cheap imported labor and don't feel obliged to pay market-driven wages (because the free technical labor market is effectively usurpted by the issuing of technical visas). I get calls all the time from recruiters looking to staff Verizon here in northern Virginia (one of the most, if not the most, expensive areas in the country to live in); the recruiters are always Indian and always act shocked when the first question I hit them with is "How much are they willing to pay?". The hourly rates they quote are less than what I made nearly 15+ years ago when I was first out of school living in a much cheaper locale. It's all about the money.
Spot on. There's a ton of demand
"I'm all for ditching the H1-B system and allowing full, unlimited immigration to highly skilled workers."
... so your solution only adds to population growth in exchange for lowering compensation requirements for businesses. That in turn only discourages people from entering "highly skilled" careers, thus feeding the need for more "unlimited" immigration of "highly skilled" workers ... and on and on.
So, in other words, you want to allow the labor market to pay no more for "highly skilled" workers as it does for low skilled workers.
You do realize, of course, that's exactly why there's a "shortage" of "highly skilled" workers in the first place (although in reality there's really a shortage of "highly skilled" workers who will work for what companies think those people ought to be paid)
Funny how they don't look to allow "full, unlimited immigration of highly skilled workers" like lawyers.
And yes, the number of "Wallys" has increased dramatically (even people who were doing great with leadership are left to wander as "Wally"s now). Also, people who make plenty of noise about what they do and the value they put in without actually *doing* anything has increased, and those people get a lot more credit and such than those who actually *do*. Cynicism among everyone else not merely dicking around or beating their chests is at an all time high, motivation on the ground. This is more like everywhere I end up working.
This is what happens to the job market when compensation is artificially limited by immigration like H1B/L1 visas. For several years after the dot-com bust companies got used to not having to pay for any kind of tech help and letting people fight over who got slots. Now these same companies (like MicroFlaccid) who are crying to the government to let in more cheap labor are having to deal with the fact that they can't get talented, motivated people for what they're currently willing to pay. The result? A building full of Wallys who show up and take their pay and don't do much else. Until the IT industry begins to deal with the fact that the dot-com bust is over and the pool of good IT talent has dried up (for the current salaries being paid), Wally's all they're gonna get.
Hey Uncle Bill, reach into that fat wallet and pull out more money if you want better people!