UC Davis Study Concludes H-1B Workers Neither Best Nor Brightest 353
CowboyRobot writes "American companies are demanding more H-1B visas to ensure access to the best and brightest workforce, and outside the U.S. are similar claims of an IT worker shortage. Last month, European Commission VP Neelie Kroes bemoaned the growing digital skills gap that threatens European competitiveness. But a new study finds that imported IT talent is often less talented than U.S. workers. Critics of the H-1B program see it as a way for companies to keep IT wages low, to discriminate against experienced U.S. workers, and to avoid labor law obligations. In his examination of the presumed correlation between talent and salary, researcher Norman Matloff observes that Microsoft has been exaggerating how much it pays foreign workers. Citing past claims by the company that it pays foreign workers '$100,000 a year to start,' Matloff says the data shows that only 18% of workers with software engineering titles sponsored for green cards by Microsoft between 2006 and 2011 had salaries at or above $100,000."
One more thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Critics of the H-1B program see it as a way for companies to keep IT wages low, to discriminate against experienced U.S. workers, and to avoid labor law obligations.
Also, H-1B employees cannot easily go to another company if they are abused at their current job.
If invited H-1B workers were able to jump ship for better conditions, the market would reassert itself soon enough.
Less skilled often means less profitable (Score:2, Interesting)
a) headcount
b) labor costs
Obviously the 2 seem a bit contradictory, but doing a little linear programming yields that for the manager to maximize his profits, a large # of low-wage workers is preferable to a smaller # of high-wage ones, even if the costs are the same and even if the output of the latter is better. If we want to change the environment first thing we have to do is get rid of the perverse incentives.
Re:No that is the inevitable outcome (Score:4, Interesting)
By the time remote controlled robots would be usable enough to carry around and install office equipment it won't be long before we have robots that can do it without any remote control.
And I doubt there will be a significant time span where robot-maintainer is a useful job; we'll have robots for that too.
There needs to be a serious discussion on what kind of society we are going to have when human labour is obsolete. The current system will start seriously breaking down when capacity outstrips demand by a significant degree and any increase in demand will be met by further automation.
Re:Currency war leads to trade war (Score:-1, Interesting)
I give it, at most, 50-100 more years before it completely collapses.
- less than 5, probably 2-3.
Re:Supply and demand (Score:5, Interesting)
Americans have university degrees. Unfortunately, they demand a competitive salary (since getting a degree in US is expensive). Also, Americans tend to leave and get another job if they are underpaid
I know lots of students who are paying US college rates for a masters degree (Ph.D students generally get paid by the university/grants) and so need a competitive salary as well - and no student who gets a degree from a US college (whom I know) is working for peanuts. They get the same salary as their US counterparts (you could argue that the increased workforce is driving down costs overall, but that is supply and demand). And 90% of the class are international students, almost all of whom want to stay in the US. And many H1B workers switch jobs when they can/need to. They just have to get the new job BEFORE quitting their old job (or within 30 days of quitting or something like that).
The real problem is the H1-B to green card process - the rules stipulate that once you apply for a green card (which many H1Bs do) you can't switch jobs (even within the same company) till the process is complete (3-5 years). Or else you need to start the application from scratch. The US is the only country that makes it so hard for even skilled workers to get a green card. It is easier to get a EU/Canadian/Australian green card sitting in the US than it is to get a US green card. If the US made it simpler to get a green card for skilled workers, many H1Bs would not be tied to an employer for so long.
Now, if you are talking about hiring overseas workers from outside the US - by getting them H1Bs from within their home country - then the issues you raised might be true. But a LOT of H1Bs are given to international citizens in the US itself.
Re:No that is the inevitable outcome (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a very insightful post. Wish I had mod points; instead I replied to another reply below.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3515549&cid=43077499 [slashdot.org]
The only thing that will stop the outsourcing economically from places like the USA or Canada (short of political change, but the money is against it) will be when global wages equilibrate as relative currency values change. But by then, in a couple decades, AI and robotics will be doing most things people are paid for now, and it will be hard for most people to compete in a race-to-the-bottom with machines that work ever-more-cheaply 24X7 for most jobs. Even if some people can compete, a lot of people like doing things like being outdoors growing plants, or making stuff with their hands, or building big things, so I can't see how most people are going to be happy spending huge amounts of time stuck doing whatever is left after all those things are mostly automated (robot management -- except won't AIs do that?).
Still, while doing meaningful work (which includes child care) is essential to human health, having a paid job is only essential in a certain kind of economic system (like without a basic income). Canada has pioneered in that area:
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4100 [dominionpaper.ca]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit#Canada [wikipedia.org]
Re:schadenfreude (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't distorting the market.
Something you regularly hear on slashdot is that recruiters are saying that they can't find the IT talent they need, but they are just lying so they can get H-1B visa's because there is more IT talent in the US than demand.
This is wrong on so many levels. The term "IT talent" alone doesn't really mean much. A database admin isn't necessarily a network admin. A network admin isn't necessarily a web admin. A web admin isn't necessarily a programmer. A programmer doesn't necessarily know all there is to know about operating and maintaining large scale SAN's. Yes, there is some overlap between these, but not much. One thing about business is that you can say enterprise structures revolve heavily around active directory, yet most people you talk to on slashdot don't have the slightest clue on how to actually run an active directory infrastructure because it's "icky microsoft proprietary crap." Most nerds don't know, for example, how to manage a VMware ESXi 5.1 cluster with a Cisco Nexus 1000v virtual distributed switch (something very big these days, btw) or even any idea what a mezzanine card is.
These are the things businesses want, not "hey, look at me, I just built a neato kernel module."
Is there plenty of IT talent? Yeah. Is there IT talent that employers actually demand? Not so much. That's where H-1B visa's come in. Employers would rather find domestic talent than talent abroad because there is far less red tape to deal with and far less risk involved. However domestic talent is very limited. Majoring in IT, I am should probably be more concerned about H-1B visa's than anybody. Yet I am not. Unlike most in IT, I am aiming for what businesses are looking for (which also happens to be something I like) rather than just figuring that if I simply know how to build my own PC, magically somebody will want to hire me.
I've seen what recruiters have to go through to find talent. I've actually sat down with recruiters and they've told me how much of a pain in the ass it is to find what they're looking for (and they have somebody breathing down THEIR neck if they don't.) Yes you can have people out there talking up a storm about how much they can do, but most of them aren't worth a shit, so there's also the matter of separating the wheat from the chaff.
They still try to find local talent and will prefer it, but if they can expand their search abroad then there is so much more to choose from.
One thing I find highly ironic is that many on slashdot will act as though deporting illegal immigrants (or just calling them illegal to begin with) and denying them the ability to work is some sort of crime against humanity. This is ignoring the fact that illegal immigrants are far far FAR more likely to depend on the dole system and become a liability rather than an asset. Yet when it comes to H-1B workers, who are practically guaranteed to be an asset, they're mysteriously anti-immigrant.
Re: find another job? Wut?!?! (Score:3, Interesting)
IT unemployment is at 3.5%, for highly skilled workers (what H1B's are supposed to be) it's even lower. If you're begging for a job and making major concessions you're negotiating from a position of ignorance.
Wages have been flat or declining for a decade though, which has discouraged our 'best and brightest' from entering the field. If we didn't artificially lower the value of developers and IT, it would be a much more attractive field for Americans.