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Yes! I was thinking of making a career change into IT. I went to an information session and hiring fair at the local community college, and there were several local IT firms who had reps present who were scouting new talent. Do you know that all the IT firm reps were Indians? They had Indian accents, some of them were probably not even US citizens. There were many nationalities present at the information session, but I noticed the reps spent the most time talking with other Indians, many of whom were immigrants. I got the impression that even though they have to publicly state that they aren't discriminatory, they are actually discriminatory in their hiring practices in that the hiring managers are Indian and they will be hiring other Indians. They are very clannish and they have no qualms about being "racist" in hiring their own kind, because they like being able to speak Hindi at work.
Around here most of our Indians speak Telugu at work but everything else you said is accurate.
Indian recruiters are time-wasters; they only talk to Americans to cover their own butts. I refuse to help them in that endeavor. I hang up on them.
Who do you think ran Silicon valley 10-20 years ago? It was all white guys like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, George Lucas (founded Industrial Light and Magic that became Pixar, computer animation). Like you said, there are many Americans living in Silicon Valley who have rich investors in other sectors that are funding their start ups. The money is coming from elsewhere and being invested into Silicon valley. I am talking about the IT industry as a whole, there are plenty of IT outposts in the US outside of Silicon Valley, for instance there are a ton in Denver, a ton in Northern Virginia where I live (and where I have worked jobs, and have seen literally the entire company is made up of Indians here on work visas). There is also IT in Texas, and Washington State, to name the ones I know about.
Our country is not behind in IT skills. This is the lie that's repeated in the media to justify the expanding of the H-1B visa program. I don't have the link but there is another thread or two on this forum where American IT workers explained how they had been laid off and had been asked by their employers to train the new H-1B visa worker hires. Their replacements were all from India, people on H-1B visas. This happened in many tech companies. When I read this I was not surprised because not only have I seen it myself, but it makes sense financially because the H-1Bs are cheaper to employ. I am telling you that I have seen it with my own eyes, although I don't work specifically in IT. I live in Northern Virginia and there is a huge amount of Indians here working in IT, I not only see them around town but I have seen them working in IT companies where I have worked.
Again, I admit there are problems with the H-1b visa, but that doesn't mean it can't be reformed.
Indians of course are the largest source of IT workers, but even South Korea is in the top 5 source countries, and that's a country with a high human development index (on par with Western Europe), so I doubt all the people coming on these visas are legitimately pushing wages down for American workers.
Just look at the demographics of Americas top engineering and programming institutions. MIT is about 1/4 Asian (and that's with affirmative action working against them!). These people are either foreign born or children of immigrants for the most part, and they're the future of American technology.
I'm not saying that there's actually a "skills shortages" like Bill Gates does. I don't sugarcoat anything like the establishment Dems and Republicans. There's a brain shortage, and that's the reality.
I think our immigration system should work like Australia, based on skills or merit. And guess what? They're now ahead of us in human development at #2 in the world, behind Norway, and have a high average income, slightly behind the US but ahead of most of developed Europe.
For technology professionals in the US, unemployment is at about 3%, down from 3.6% a year ago. That immigration displacement is minimal and exaggerated. It remains one of the best professions in the country, even in this "recovery" economy.
Again, I admit there are problems with the H-1b visa, but that doesn't mean it can't be reformed.
Indians of course are the largest source of IT workers, but even South Korea is in the top 5 source countries, and that's a country with a high human development index (on par with Western Europe), so I doubt all the people coming on these visas are legitimately pushing wages down for American workers.
Just look at the demographics of Americas top engineering and programming institutions. MIT is about 1/4 Asian (and that's with affirmative action working against them!). These people are either foreign born or children of immigrants for the most part, and they're the future of American technology.
I'm not saying that there's actually a "skills shortages" like Bill Gates does. I don't sugarcoat anything like the establishment Dems and Republicans. There's a brain shortage, and that's the reality.
I think our immigration system should work like Australia, based on skills or merit. And guess what? They're now ahead of us in human development at #2 in the world, behind Norway, and have a high average income, slightly behind the US but ahead of most of developed Europe.
For technology professionals in the US, unemployment is at about 3%, down from 3.6% a year ago. That immigration displacement is minimal and exaggerated. It remains one of the best professions in the country, even in this "recovery" economy.
"Immigration displacement" happens frequently enough to have talented, bright American students who want to go into STEM/IT fields discouraged from doing so. Why should they take out thousands in student loans (or, if they are fortunate, their parents pay the freight) only to be passed over in favor of H1-Bs?
H1-Bs are NOT the "best and brightest" by any means. My husband works in IT and in the past, has had to clean up messes made by H1-Bs. At best, H1-Bs are mediocre and at worst, downright incompetent.
There is an "O" visa for the "best and brightest" --- and it does get used.
We don't need to bring in H1-Bs. In fact, this whole visa program needs to be scrapped as it is riddled with fraud and corruptions.
"Immigration displacement" happens frequently enough to have talented, bright American students who want to go into STEM/IT fields discouraged from doing so. Why should they take out thousands in student loans (or, if they are fortunate, their parents pay the freight) only to be passed over in favor of H1-Bs?
H1-Bs are NOT the "best and brightest" by any means. My husband works in IT and in the past, has had to clean up messes made by H1-Bs. At best, H1-Bs are mediocre and at worst, downright incompetent.
There is an "O" visa for the "best and brightest" --- and it does get used.
We don't need to bring in H1-Bs. In fact, this whole visa program needs to be scrapped as it is riddled with fraud and corruptions.
Again, we can just have an Australian style immigration system that focuses on skills and merit. That would solve a lot of the problems with the H-1b visa.
Same as before, there's no addressing the fact that the US simply lacks folks highly talented in mathematics and science.
Same as before, there's no addressing the fact that the US simply lacks folks highly talented in mathematics and science.
^I seriously doubt this.
If we scrapped the whole H1-B visa program, all those talented kids would not be afraid to major in a STEM/IT field.
Don't take the supposed lack of American kids majoring in those fields to mean that we lack those highly talented in math and science.
Besides, is it really right to poach any of the third world's best and brightest? It seems to me that they are needed in their own countries much, much more than they are needed here.
Again, we can just have an Australian style immigration system that focuses on skills and merit. That would solve a lot of the problems with the H-1b visa.
Same as before, there's no addressing the fact that the US simply lacks folks highly talented in mathematics and science.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BOS2IAD
^I seriously doubt this.
If we scrapped the whole H1-B visa program, all those talented kids would not be afraid to major in a STEM/IT field.
Don't take the supposed lack of American kids majoring in those fields to mean that we lack those highly talented in math and science.
Besides, is it really right to poach any of the third world's best and brightest? It seems to me that they are needed in their own countries much, much more than they are needed here.
I agree with BOS2IAD here. Too: some of the stuff that "engineers" come up with need to be "torture tested" by "ignorant Rednecks" and made better like as in things actually work when things get rough. Kinda like the Russian AK47 is a crude semi auto gun but is stone reliable but way too many of our AR's fail when most needed even tho they work VERY well IF "right".
If we scrapped the whole H1-B visa program, all those talented kids would not be afraid to major in a STEM/IT field.
Don't take the supposed lack of American kids majoring in those fields to mean that we lack those highly talented in math and science.
Besides, is it really right to poach any of the third world's best and brightest? It seems to me that they are needed in their own countries much, much more than they are needed here.
I'm not talking about majors here. I'm talking about math and science scores on international testing, especially PISA which is a fairly reliable measure. The US falls short of most developed nations. We're more like southern Europe than Germany, S. Korea or Japan, with their high tech industries and heavy manufacturing economies.
If you look at how the curve works on international testing, it ends up that we have about as many highly proficient math students as S. Korea, yet we have 6x the population. That's pathetic, and you're not addressing this. It's why Samsung and LG are so competitive, and it's important to take this into account.
It's the difference between German engineering and Italian engineering. It's why Japan's technology remains sophisticated, even as their economy fails and their worker pool shrinks (Irony here is that Japan has almost no immigration, and a shrinking pool of labor, yet wages aren't climbing, which is what you would assume would happen).
^And what is being done about this? I'm guessing that the answer is nothing. Even if there are resources to improve math and science teaching, it still doesn't change the fact that intelligent and skilled math and science students are being discouraged from entering STEM/IT fields.
It's far too easy to abuse the H1-B visa using excuses like this. Now it's long past time to scrap that whole visa program and stop poaching the third world's best and brightest.
^And what is being done about this? I'm guessing that the answer is nothing. Even if there are resources to improve math and science teaching, it still doesn't change the fact that intelligent and skilled math and science students are being discouraged from entering STEM/IT fields.
It's far too easy to abuse the H1-B visa using excuses like this. Now it's long past time to scrap that whole visa program and stop poaching the third world's best and brightest.
Like I said, change to an Australian immigration system. Make it based on skills, limit the number of people from a particular country, so that half the visas aren't just going to India. The biggest winners of skilled immigration are Asians and Europeans.
Make it easier for people from OECD or high HDI countries to come here as well. Germans and Japanese aren't going to hurt Americans, and will likely create jobs instead. Make it more difficult for low-skilled workers to arrive, and instead let in more doctors, lawyers, bankers, etc, whose wages are extremely high, even relative to the same positions in Western Europe.
And like I continue to state, who are the top graduates in math and science programs in the US? Asian Americans represent a very disproportionate share. A lot of the "Americans" hurt by high-skilled immigration are children of immigrants themselves. Even among Black Americans at top universities, a highly disproportionate amount are children of African immigrants.
Having a long foreign born population doesn't have to hurt "Americans". Switzerland has one of the largest immigrant populations in the developed world, around 1/4 of their total population. Yet their unemployment is very low, and incomes are among the highest in the world. They also have higher per capita GDP than us, and higher human development index. Australia and Canada are decent examples as well. It's just about who you're letting in, and high-skilled immigrants don't really have many negative effects.
Again, we can just have an Australian style immigration system that focuses on skills and merit. That would solve a lot of the problems with the H-1b visa.
Same as before, there's no addressing the fact that the US simply lacks folks highly talented in mathematics and science.
We don't need any more immigrants. We are in a recession and everyone feels the crunch, adding more people to our country is not helping. Unrestricted growth is like a cancer.
The "we don't have enough STEM talent" has been repeated for YEARS in the media. You would think by now we would have it. We do, I don't doubt that. What I do doubt is that we have employers who want to pay an American a fair wage to do the STEM work, when they could easily pay a H-1B visa worker LESS to do the same job. We can have as many talented American STEM workers as we want, but if nobody will hire them, we have a problem.
I was looking to get into nursing and one thing I found is that in the nursing field there is a glut of nurse graduates. You wouldn't know it on the surface, because the nursing schools continually talk about a nursing shortage, and they go as far as to post fake ads for nurse jobs on job boards, in order to lure people into getting a nursing degree. I was going to be one of those people, but after reading about it on nursing forums, I came to find that the "nurse shortage" is a convenient myth that's propagated so nursing schools can benefit, and so that employers can hire nurses at a lower wage, because of the glut on the market of nurses.
The employment market is all economics.
We need to focus on providing jobs to Americans, that includes training Americans, instead of training offshore workers to do American jobs for cheaper.
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