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We're talking about computer scientists here. Microsoft and Facebook don't hire these low quality coders. We aren't talking about an IT guy at a finance company. We're talking about computer scientists at Microsoft and Facebook.
Just because two of the most well known (and profitable) companies want more H1-B's doesn't mean that we should open the flood gates.
Everyone wants to work at Microsoft and Facebook. They can afford to be picky and choose the "best of the best" and they do pay h1-B's very well.
Other companies have been caught with their pants down though. That is the problem.
I once worked for an small Indian-owned IT company. I have no major complaints, other than their checks bounced a couple of times.
I see the issue as one of credentialism on the one hand, and corporatism on the other. Many companies only barely understand what IT actually does, and struggle to even enunciate coherent position requirements. So on paper, that H1B looks as good as, or superior to, most American candidates. The reality is very possibly quite different. I have worked with very competent, high level immigrants from India and China, and also with incompetent, terrible ones.
I also think that high fixed costs of certain categories of employees, particularly the aging, plays into this, in addition to the uncertainty caused by Obamacare, add to caution in hiring in general. If a company can offload these costs and risks in contracting, why would it not do so? Also worth mentioning is the general decline in wages is in part attributable to the mass influx of women into the workforce over the past 40+ years. While beneficial in many ways, it should be clear that one of its costs is wage depression.
Instead of writing my representative or wasting time on the political process, I will do my small part by advocating the training up of entry-level employees at my organization. This does not solve all needs, but does create a talent pipeline.
There is no shortage of American STEM workers but the career path has gotten so bad for many fields in STEM that many Americans are repelled from them towards fields with better (any?) rewards for their hard work and inteligence.
OK, it’s official. A new study funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has now confirmed what professors have been saying privately for years: the brightest American students aren’t going into science and engineering careers nearly as often as they used to.
But the reason is not, as some people say, that young Americans lack the smarts or the skills to succeed in those fields. Instead, it appears that longstanding U.S. policies have destroyed the incentives that used to attract many of the nation’s best young minds into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (the so-called STEM fields). And that means that as the United States faces increasing technological and scientific competition from abroad, the country isn’t getting the full benefit of the brainpower it is paying to educate.
“It’s a labor market story,” not an education story, says one of the report’s authors, Harold Salzman, of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Rather than staying with STEM for graduate studies or a first job, many of our most able college graduates are now opting out of the pipeline that the nation used to count on to carry gifted students into STEM careers.
But the new study reveals an ominous trend among the scientifically gifted. Although the numbers of young Americans studying STEM in high school and college are as strong as ever, the very best of those students, as indicated by their SAT scores and college grade point averages, are less likely than in decades past to stay in STEM when they leave college.
If you want inteligent hard working Americans to enter a field that requies high inteligence and hard, long, and expensive postsecondary training and then to stay in the field after graduating you can't hire them via a crapo staffing agency and pay <$20 hour or they will stay out of the field or switch to finance, healthcare, or other more lucrative fields.
THe h1-b program is a significant part of the cause of the problem, not the solution to it.
Last edited by MSchemist80; 07-14-2014 at 09:39 AM..
About the studies in science, they do not require to be specialized, on the contrary, we need people who can take a step back and overview the whole process without losing the capability to do it on an operational level.
It's very sad to see some workers being totally lost when there is a slight change in the use case and not having the hint to either search on-line and/or develop their own logic to move forward.
On the other hand, it's a real relief & satisfaction to see some people being totally autonomous even in a field that is far from their original field because they have this well-rounded intelligence.
The problem in America is that, while we have high standards for our technology workers our requirements and standards for managers are set too low. I often worked with mgrs who are only interest is to further advance their agenda or career simply by focusing on showing their resourcefulness but don't care much about the aftermath of their decisions and policies. By the time another group discovers flaws or poor decision making they already have their butts covered by transferring to another group and remove themselves of all responsibilities.
This is the problem in corporate America we have managers today that don't manage and most of them are just salesmans. If they show their bosses they helped the firm saved lots of money by going with cheaper labor and having a larger headcount report to them they are in line to get promoted by simply showing immediate cost savings while they can't quantify the long time costs the company may have to absorb from short-sightedness and poor decision making.
I often reviewed IT projects that I thought was either unnecessary or poorly executed. And by the time I was able to track down those that are responsible, they already moved on to different LOB and are immune to responsibilities.
You bring your caste system with you, and expect it to work here, just like it does "back home". You might be considered superior in "your country" but no one's buying it here. You're the ones who are racist, and expect the rest of us to follow along. This is a different country, with a different culture, get used to it! Stop displaying your open disdain for anyone you consider inferior, and expect us to just suck it up. We're not impressed with the fact that you "went to university" or speak some mish-mash version of English. If you're so g-da**ed superior, what are you doing here? why aren't you back in India, helping build a better country for yourselves, rather than coming here and taking our abundant resources for your own, to #ell with the very Americans who built those opportunities in the first place.
I wonder how I would be treated in India, if I went there expecting to have handed to me what the indigenious population has built for themselves, and bow to me in the process? Somehow, I don't think so......
I suspect that at least part of the worker backlash is caused by attitude those workers bring with them regarding women and others being "untouchable". Americans are appalled by the way women are treated in some countries and should be concerned when foreign workers bring their customs with them resulting in many news stories about "honor killings" and worse to female infants. Compound those attitudes with them taking American jobs it is very understandable why Americans should be protesting the loss of our jobs and culture.
Hopefully, people will think before they vote next election.
I suspect that at least part of the worker backlash is caused by attitude those workers bring with them regarding women and others being "untouchable". Americans are appalled by the way women are treated in some countries and should be concerned when foreign workers bring their customs with them resulting in many news stories about "honor killings" and worse to female infants. Compound those attitudes with them taking American jobs it is very understandable why Americans should be protesting the loss of our jobs and culture.
Hopefully, people will think before they vote next election.
I mentioned this earlier (or in another thread, I forget)but a few years ago I applied for a marketing director position and they called me in. When I got there I found out ALL of the managers there were Indian men and all the support jobs were done by women. Long story short they called me in not for the marketing director position (apparently that was filled)but for a minimum wage data clerk job I was way over qualified for. During the interview the questions consisted of asking me if I smoked, if I had kids, if I was married etc. The guy told me he only hires thin women without kids who don't smoke. I was horrified with this and when they offered me the job I declined. Not only did I want a better job but knew it would be bad. I have worked with Indians from India and all of them were extremely sexist. That's their culture and that's what they bring over many times. I'm sure there are many who don't think that way but haven't seen it that much with those I have come into contact with. I've also worked with American born Indians and they didn't have that attitude but they were born here (and many of them were several generations American).
I mentioned this earlier (or in another thread, I forget)but a few years ago I applied for a marketing director position and they called me in. When I got there I found out ALL of the managers there were Indian men and all the support jobs were done by women. Long story short they called me in not for the marketing director position (apparently that was filled)but for a minimum wage data clerk job I was way over qualified for. During the interview the questions consisted of asking me if I smoked, if I had kids, if I was married etc. The guy told me he only hires thin women without kids who don't smoke. I was horrified with this and when they offered me the job I declined. Not only did I want a better job but knew it would be bad. I have worked with Indians from India and all of them were extremely sexist. That's their culture and that's what they bring over many times. I'm sure there are many who don't think that way but haven't seen it that much with those I have come into contact with. I've also worked with American born Indians and they didn't have that attitude but they were born here (and many of them were several generations American).
I've seen it from Chinese H1-B's as well. We wrote up someone for it two months ago, and put him on notice that his behavior was unacceptable. I had to explain at length why. He was very unaware that anyone could be offended by it. So I explained at length, and in the most helpful manner I could. Now he is very very cautious about what he says. He really struggles with it.
That's why we don't give h1 visas to liberal arts jobs. We actually excel in liberal arts.
The reason why we don't produce more good quality STEM students in the US is because the quality of education is abysmal at most schools.
Competent computer scientists make quite a bit more than $40k... even after just 4 years in college.
Wow, our abysmal college educations must be why so many foreigners come to America to attend college. Yup.
Really? Yeah I had some bad classes in college for software engineering, but only at the entry level. once I got past the first level classes my education was incredible.
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Somehow, I don't think so......
