Indian IT Sector Warns Against US Visa Bill (reuters.com) 477
India's IT lobby warned on Tuesday that a bill before the U.S. Congress aimed at imposing tougher visa rules unfairly targets some of its members and will not solve a U.S. labor shortage in technology and engineering. From a report on Reuters: Industry lobby group Nasscom was responding to a bill introduced by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California, that would double the minimum salary required for holders of H-1B visas to $130,000 and determine how many of the visas were allocated, based on factors such as overall wages. India's $150 billion information technology sector, led by Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, uses the H-1B visas to fly engineers and developers to service clients in the U.S., their biggest market, but opponents say they are using the visas to replace U.S. workers. Concerns about President Donald Trump's immigration policies were heightened by his ban on refugees on Friday. "The Lofgren Bill contains provisions that may prove challenging for the Indian IT sector and will also leave loopholes that will nullify the objective of saving American jobs," Nasscom said.
Take a hike (Score:2, Insightful)
I could careless about the Indian IT job sector. Piss off.
Re:Take a hike (Score:5, Funny)
So you *do* care. Awww.
Re:What are they gonna do? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What are they gonna do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Refuse to tell us how to reboot our Dells?
When I worked on the Google IT help desk in 2008, I had to walk a newly hired computer science graduate on how to TURN ON his workstation. He actually expected to find someone standing to turn on the workstations like they do at the university computer labs. He was shocked that he had to do manual labor.
Re:What are they gonna do? (Score:5, Funny)
That's actually an improvement. In 1979, I had to teach a Pakistani student how to use a laundromat. Fellow student down the hall, he had asked me what the best way was to the river, to wash his clothes. . .
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At least your fellow student wanted to find the river to wash his clothes. Some (even US born) students lacked the understanding that clothing needed to be (at least occasionally) washed.
Wish I could say that I have seen it improve in the past 30 years, but I still encounter at least one student a year needing this life lesson.
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Well, I knew plenty of kids who dropped off laundry with Mummy and Daddy before heading out to party on a Friday night. Heck, one SHIPPED his wash back to Connecticut (College was in Pennsylvania) and he got a box of clean laundry back every week. . .
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Having a person to turn on the computer for you is the kind of thing you would expect in a heavily-unionized shop or a country where labor is exceedingly cheap.
Or volunteering to run the university computer lab as a prerequisite to join the computer priesthood to protect computers from users.
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Shows you how bad CS is for basic IT skills
I've been told in a previous comment that there are CS students who are interested in CS only for the money, graduate without ever touching a computer, and then expect to get paid six-figures for knowing CS theory without ever applying it.
Re:Take a hike (Score:5, Insightful)
No Sympathy (Score:5, Insightful)
I worked a few months for a company that was stocked mostly with H1-Bs and owned and ran by Indian immigrants. The way that they abused the heck out of their own countrymen like they had imported the caste system to their little office just filled me with disgust.
Yeah plenty of American employers abusing American employees but at least the American employees don't risk deportation if they quit, or get fired because the employer suspected them of trying to find a better job.
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It's part of the culture I think. A woman I volunteer with works in an office with a lot of H1-Bs. She's probably about to get laid off and she looks forward to it, as the Indians tend to treat her like garbage. As far as they're concerned women are second class citizens. With the layoff she'll be able to collect a severance and have some time to look for something better hopefully not having to deal with that bullshit.
Re:No Sympathy (Score:4, Interesting)
I worked for a contract house that imported Indians hand over fist. (I guess they saw my resume online and snapped it up to keep up appearances of hiring Americans first. Works for me.)
Anyway, the brought us into a room one day and explained they paid overtime (which the gigantic customer paid for) but only in excess of the 45th hour. However, they would charge for hours 41-45 anyway.
This did not sit well with the Indian people. I have no idea what their base salaries were.
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I worked a few months for a company that was stocked mostly with H1-Bs and owned and ran by Indian immigrants. The way that they abused the heck out of their own countrymen like they had imported the caste system to their little office just filled me with disgust.
I have seen this first-hand and it needs to stop.
Go 15% of Trump! [Re:No Sympathy] (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked with one visa worker who confided that he was paid only once every 6 months. He got his full amount, but had to budget carefully. I've seen other shady visa practices also.
I don't like Trump and didn't vote for him, but on THIS issue he is right (perhaps accidentally).
"Labor Shortage" (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a myth
Re:"Labor Shortage" (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a myth
There is no shortage of people with an CS degree. But there is certainly a shortage of people that can actually write good code for non-trivial tasks. Proper CS is hard, you need to know tons of things about very different topics from algorithms and maths, to hardware details and interfaces. In addition problem solving and abstract thinking skills are required. Only a small fraction of people is able to do that and even if people have the talent, but are only into CS for the money, they will likely never learn enough.
The issue with H1B is that they are justified with the real shortage of really good people, but are used to keep wages down for people doing routine, trivial tasks that can be done even by people with only so-so education and skills.
Re:"Labor Shortage" (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you do this thing called "on-the-job training." Oh silly me, that would require companies invest in their employees for the long-term versus paying barebones wages to maximize executive bonuses.
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You're not talking about a people shortage, you're talking about a training shortage.
Nope. Training can help people to learn about a new language, a new operating system, etc. But if people lack the talent for abstract thought, can't write something as simple as FizzBuzz in any language of their choice, then no amount of training is going to enable them to write complex software. The issue is that Universities do not want to tell people early that they lack talent and should switch to a different profession. Then they somehow finish their CS degree and cannot find a job.
Re:"Labor Shortage" (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no shortage of people with an CS degree. But there is certainly a shortage of people that can actually write good code for non-trivial tasks.
That's why companies *USED* to actually invest in worker training. That was back when a worker was treated like a long-term asset, who would stay with the company for the long haul and be professionally developed and trained in-house. The CS or Engineering degree was just a start that got them in the door in an entry position.
But these days, companies treat workers like disposable pens and expect them to pay for all their own training and professional development on their own time (with their shit salary and long work hours, no less). Then they wonder why they have so much turnover and can't find/keep decent workers.
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"Labor Shortage" (Score:5, Interesting)
You speak of the "U.S. labor shortage" yet I look around and see American colleagues who are stuck in dead-end positions with no raises/promotions and struggling to find anything better, and then on the floor above me is at least a couple hundred H1-Bs in positions that could easily be filled by Americans who are looking.
Trump and the Democrats agree... (Score:2)
Nice to see some bipartisan agreement and action again, right?
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The fun part is Trump and the Democrat will likely support this measure and the Republicans in Congress will oppose it.
Should make for an interesting show.
Re:Trump and the Democrats agree... (Score:5, Interesting)
Both Republicans and Democrats are split on this. The Dems have both their working class constituencies - the ones that haven't already defected like those in MI, PA and WI, as well as their minority constituency - Indians, who still vote more heavily Democrat than Republican
Republicans, OTOH, have the collision b/w their business interests, who want more visas, vs their own grassroots that would like to see even legal immigration curtailed until unemployment is drastically reduced
So in all likelihood, there will be bipartisan support for both sides
Oh no! My body shop will close! (Score:3, Informative)
Now we know who's abusing the H1B visa program - the ones who complain the loudest.
We offshore our India team, so we won't be affected by the H1B changes. But the body shops here will be decimated, which is probably going to be a good thing.
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How effective are you then in keeping your workforce, given that offshoring companies are a dime a dozen in India - not just the HCLs, the TCSs and the Wipros, but also really small ones like Zensar, CSS Corp, Mindtree, Syntel, et al who are often ready to lure them? Or have you found some happy median b/w what would keep them from bolting and what you would have paid an US employee here?
Thanks, Trump! (Score:3, Interesting)
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Senior care.
I had several friends who abandoned computers for healthcare after the dot com bust. They make more money than I do today but they hate their jobs because all they do is wipe asses and change bed pans. Some of my best paying IT contracts has been hospitals. Go figure...
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Re:Thanks, Trump! (Score:5, Funny)
They should introduce bidets in this country
Google has bidets in their restrooms. Great when they work. When they don't work, I find my balls touching the ice cold water in the bowl and my ass catching fire from a bad heating element in the seat. That's no way to take a shit.
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If somebody is so infirm that they are unable to go to the toilet, why would a bidet help? Do bidets include some magical teleportation device that takes you from your bed to the toilet, waits for you to take a shit then switches you to the bidet so you can wash your arse before you're dropped back off in bed again?
Or did you just utterly fucking fail to understand the point being made?
Self serving anyone ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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If this is true, why don't these entrepreneurial and brilliant technologists build world-class companies and products in their home countries?
Probably because their home country lacks a middle class to bridge the gap between the poor and the rich. Without a middle class there are no consumers to buy advance products.
Something tells me these H1B visa holders are neither entrepreneurial nor brilliant.
You're wrong about that. It takes a lot of determination to rise up against societal norms, get an education and leave their home country. Those workers who come to the United States are more likely to be the ones who starts new companies in their home country.
Re:Why don't H1Bs simply build companies at home? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those workers who come to the United States are more likely to be the ones who starts new companies in their home country.
bullshit.
I have lived in the bay area for over 25 yrs and have 'trained my replacements' countless times.
indians who are brought here to work at the likes of intel, cisco, apple, fb, twitter and so on - they are not any smarter than the avergage local IT guy. they are not horrible people but they are not special, either, and this is the whole point - you can find 'regular old IT people' anywhere and you don't have to fly them in from india and china (why is china not mentioned, btw? lots of h1b's are from all over asia, not just india).
you won't find regular people starting new companies.
now, at the smaller 100 person startups (I'm at one now) you CAN find folks from india who are the best in their field. but these are not h1bs! they are indians who came to the US and now live here with intention of staying. we have some really good engineers from india at my place, but when I was at cisco (etc) - it was nothing special and everyone was mediocre, at best, there. and the place was FLOODED with folks from india; you would go a whole day and not hear english spoken in the hallways (cisco is famous for that, sadly).
the best and brightest don't need sponsors such as h1b to get them here; their own intelligence will get them regular jobs. h1b is entirely just to displace local workers with cheap labor AND THAT'S ALL IT WAS EVER MEANT TO BE.
the jig is up, guys. and its about time! I hope its real, this time, though. something tells me that the orange haired monkey that is now running this country will not really care much about US; and he'll do whatever he wants to make himself better off. the rest of us, I seriously doubt he has our best interests at heart. not a republican big businessman. those are the very people that exclusively abuse this program and benefit directly from it!
Re:Why don't H1Bs simply build companies at home? (Score:4, Insightful)
the jig is up, guys. and its about time! I hope its real, this time, though. something tells me that the orange haired monkey that is now running this country will not really care much about US; and he'll do whatever he wants to make himself better off. the rest of us, I seriously doubt he has our best interests at heart. not a republican big businessman. those are the very people that exclusively abuse this program and benefit directly from it!
IMHO, the risk is that the general Trump persona and the over-the-top reaction to everything he does will render his potentially useful actions ineffective, and worse, possibly poison issues like H1-B as just another aspect of a racist nationalist agenda, making positive change on that issue impossible.
It's utterly clear that the globalist/transnationals completely support mass immigration, jobs transfer, etc, whether for cynical motivation (more money for people at the top) or because it fits into some complex long-term agenda with altruistic motivations (spread the wealth, etc), so don't be surprised if/when Trump fails H1-B will back at status quo or worse when the globalists regain control.
As for Trump's personal motivation, I'm never quite sure on this. It's easy to align him with the usual cadre of rich corporate types, but I sometimes suspect that Trump himself doesn't feel like he fits into that crowd as a natural member, which is why he tries so hard and often comes off as a tacky and nouveau riche. He has to flout his wealth harder to prove he belongs.
Bottom line, he may not be motivationally aligned with traditional corporate interests or may not feel like he has to tow their line.
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Trump is no businessman in the sense of Big Business. He has no Board of Directors in his toy companies, they are strictly Mom and Pop type operations. He cannot even make good hiring decisions. You can see that by what he believes make good cabinet nominees. That is no team he's assembling, it is just some guys and gals he likes. He's in way over his head.
Re:Why don't H1Bs simply build companies at home? (Score:5, Interesting)
Trump got handed over 100 million dollars from his daddy. Had he put it into a bank FD it would now be worht 5 Billion dollars. Trump is currently worth 4.5 Billion. Thats how good a businessman he is, he cannot beat the returns on a fixed deposit. His daddy and his granddaddy were good businessmen but then they were immigrants 1st and 2nd generation - If you want something done right get an immigrant to do it.
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Why don't H1Bs simply build companies at home?
Because in their home-land they can't seem to figure out how to build their own countries like the United States did with a lot of hard work and time. It's much easier to just come to the United States and reap the benefits of all that hard work and siphon back to their respective home lands. Let's take Iraq for instance. The Sunni, the Shiites and the Kurds have been more concerned about killing each other over religious beliefs than they have been about building up their country's infrastructure to act
Re:Why don't H1Bs simply build companies at home? (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL
Your example of American superiority is our superiourity to a country which we bombed into the stone age, kicking off a civil war with our own ignorance and greed?
Your example demonstrates our responsibility to refugees...
That said, we have no similar responsibility to enable H1-B abuse...
I'll grant you this, we did have military operations in Iraq and the Middle East in general in recent times but you can't make that the scapegoat for The Middle East's complete and utter incompetence. The killing that I'm referring to has been going for 1000+ years way before the United States ever existed. Sorry, try again. Learn history if you want to join the discussion. At least America supports religious freedom instead supporting coerced Theocracy to the point that if you leave the Theocratic faith, you will be executed. The Middle East makes its own self look stupid without Americans or anyone else having to point it out.
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Time and time again we hear how this technical talent simply doesn't exist here in the US and we need to go abroad to find it.
It's propaganda from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Why do you think they are so upset with Trump's policies and have been taking to twitter and all kinds of other PR campaigns to smear him? They stand to lose a lot of money if the playing field changes. Do your research, the facts are out there. It's all about the money money money.
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actually I think its more propaganda from Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Micro$oft. Its hard to buy that next-worlds-most-expensive-luxury-yacht if you have to actually pay your programmers what they are worth.
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actually I think its more propaganda from Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Micro$oft. Its hard to buy that next-worlds-most-expensive-luxury-yacht if you have to actually pay your programmers what they are worth.
Oh that's nothing. Brace yourself. Here is the US Chamber of Commerce directory [uschamber.com]. Push the Search Directory button with no criteria. Notably on this list:
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It seems there's are a lot of non-American interests in the "U.S." Chamber of Commerce.
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Threatening Trump is easy, just ask Putin. You didn't think Trump's Putin love was deep affection, did you?
HB-1 abuse (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm pro-open-borders (subject to individual background checks) but if you are going to have a system like HB-1 visas that are nominally only supposed to be used when a US citizen or permanent resident can't be found, you need to do it right.
This means making it very difficult to "game" the system so that you can hire a foreigner for $60K to do a job that "looks like" a $60K job on paper but is really a $65K (or $165K) job with a low-ball salary designed to make American candidates look elsewhere.
A partial fix is to do what Trump is suggesting: Have much-higher minimum salaries. If the minimum salary is $130K, you still may have "low ball" job offers of $130K for a job that is really a $200K position, but at least most mid-level and fresh-out-of-college techies won't have to compete with non-Americans for jobs in America.
They will still have to compete with jobs that will go overseas (and SOME will if hiring foreigners gets harder), which is one reason I'm for open borders when it comes to employment.
Personally, I would replace all work visas with a general work visa available to anyone who can pass a background check, but I would charge the employee a significant surtax on all income (probably 10% or so) with the funds directed to career-education and -retraining programs for American unemployed workers with any leftover money directed to K-12 and secondary education programs.
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Well, that's an interesting system you're suggesting. It's very similar to what we have now in science. Anyone who can pass a background check can be employed on a student visa (even if they're not a student) at a university. (For scale, universities in the US raise and spend slightly more money on research annually than the total annual funding for startup companies in the US.) So the research labor market is very much an open, worldwide competition, with a lot of people and a lot of opportunity. Allow
There is no labor shortage in tech. (Score:5, Informative)
There's a shortage of below minimum wage labor within our borders.
Call centers tend to be run as sweat shops to squeeze as much tech work out of as minimally qualified people as possible for a little pay as they can offer to get them to show up to work. India was the solution to pay even less to get equally unqualified work.
The problem with tech isn't the lack of people willing to work tech, there's thousands of reasonably good techs that are jobless in every major city. It's the way companies view tech. Bean counters see tech as a pure expense since I.T. rarely brings money into the company directly. The job of I.T. is to enable everyone else in the company to bring money in. Sadly I.T. is seen as the equivalent to cleaning staff or the electrician that had a job to do but never left by many organizations. This view of I.T. is part of why so many companies that shun tech are often caught without good backups and easily fall prey to ransomware. At least ransomware makers are profiting from the mindset.
Boo Hoo (Score:2)
H1B Visas are meant to supplement not replace U.S. workers and yet it's the outsourcing firms that get the largest number of Visas.
Build up your own fucking economy ass-hole.
India has everything to lose (Score:5, Insightful)
You can make claims about freedom of religion and all this other nonsense but this issue is about economics, pure and simple. What's being proposed is that incentives to hire people outside of the United States who have no interest in the success of the United States to do the same job for half the wages be greatly lessened. Also, I can tell you from direct experience in the software industry, Indian contractors produce lower quality code, break more builds, have poor communication and many other things that lead to worse quality software. I can't tell you how many times I traced build breaks back to Indian contractors. The only benefit to hiring them is that they cost less.
Before you call me a racist, I have high respect for other cultures and enjoy their cuisine a lot. I love Indian food and I think Indian people in general are pretty cool. What I don't like is when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is throwing all the American citizens under a bus by hiring less skilled workers for a much cheaper price at the expense of American citizens so they can turn even bigger profits when the corporations the Chamber is comprised of are already sitting on vast piles of wealth. It's really a slap in the face. They've taken advantage of the Land of Opportunity so much that it is no longer the Land of Opportunity.
The U.S. Chamber brought this on themselves. They gamed the system too hard and caused a lot of hardship to good, hard-working Americans and that's why this backlash has occurred.
What a load of garbage (Score:3)
There's this : "imposing tougher visa rules unfairly targets some of its members and will not solve a U.S. labor shortage in technology and engineering"
Then this : "contains provisions that may prove challenging for the Indian IT sector...nullify the objective of saving American jobs"
So in other words, "this looks uncomfortably like it might work, so we're going to come up with a load of bullshit while we figure out a way of getting round it".
If there is a labor shortage, surely American jobs don't need saving? Anyway, as many people here have pointed out in the past, this has nothing to do with closet racism, denying smart people with the vital skills we need the right to come and work in the US or protectionism.
It's about unscrupulous people breaking the rules and exploiting their fellow countrymen while careless (in both senses of the word) suits look the other way.
Let Them Cry (Score:5, Insightful)
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I am not a Trump supporter...
Neither am I, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. There are a few things he's done right, but by-and-large his presidency is a dumpster fire right now.
I think there's plenty of domestic talent (Score:2)
I have very little problem with the original intention of the H-1B program -- giving companies a safety valve to import a small number of workers who actually possess skills that can't be found domestically. I work for a multinational and we use internal transfers a lot for that purpose...and most of the people they bring in are actually the kind of people that the program originally targeted.
What I don't like is the abuse. Any time a company's IT costs get too high for the MBA's liking, they can turn to an
India's IT industry is worried? (Score:3)
Good.
There is no labor shortage (Score:3)
There is no labor shortage.
There is a companies willing to pay what it takes to hire someone competent shortage...
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According to Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live, Pence will be president in two months. So far... right on schedule.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_Gf0mGJfP8 [youtube.com]
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Well, as long as they don't screw it up, either accidentally or on-purpose. I'd wonder what "loopholes" are being referred to.
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Unless I misunderstand how it works in the US, if both Trump and Pence were removed from office this very moment the presidency would fall to the president pro tempore of the senate, who is currently Senator Orrin Hatch (A Republican).
I know nothing of his politics or whether he'd be for or against h1b reform though.
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Orrin Hatch is an old-school corporate-whore Republican who has made his position on H1B's quite clear [numbersusa.com].
Re:This is a good thing (Score:4, Informative)
Unless I misunderstand how it works in the US, if both Trump and Pence were removed from office this very moment the presidency would fall to the president pro tempore of the senate, who is currently Senator Orrin Hatch (A Republican).
I know nothing of his politics or whether he'd be for or against h1b reform though.
Actually, it would go to Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. President Pro-Tempre (not sure about spelling) of the Senate is #4.
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I guess sarcasm is lost on people. I clearly read the GP as pointing out that had DJT or a GOP congressman introduced something like this, he'd have been tagged 'racist', and that Lofgren ain't being treated that way b'cos she's a Liberal
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. . .and then, if you get your way, you get President Ryan.
I suspect you wouldn't like him either...
Ryan knows wtf he's doing (Score:3)
I'd damn sure rather have Paul Ryan as President. Ryan really knows what he's doing. Trump, Pence, and Clinton have never *read* the federal budget, Paul Ryan has *written* the federal budget, more than once.
There's a reason there was no "campaigning" for Speaker of the House this time around, why Paul Ryan was the consensus pick, even though he refused to follow tradition and do campaign appearances for the reps who voted for him. His peers wanted Ryan, without a campaign, because they know Ryan is the s
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That's one field. The reason EE is dying is because software engineering is booming. Back 30, even 20 years ago you had a ton of people making custom ASICs for every piece of electronics. Now, processors are so cheap that there's little need for anything but a SOC solution for all but the most complex products. You still need people to build out those SOCs and embed them, but it takes a fraction of the people. All the work that was done on those ASICs is now done in software- which is still adding a t
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If EE is dying, then maybe I should tell my nephew and all his EE friends who have been scooped up right after graduation from U of Washington. My nephew is in British Columbia doing a Masters (all paid for), several of his friends have $100K+ jobs in the Pacific NW. Yes, they were at the top of the class in a relatively good department, but there are jobs out there. Perhaps not for everyone with a pulse but that has pretty much always been the case.
Re:Labor shortage in engineering? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Management. Bring your magic 8 ball for all the important decisions and you're set.
Re:Labor shortage in engineering? (Score:5, Informative)
Considering the tens of thousands of software developers and engineers who are laid off each year by companies such as Microsoft, Google, Cisco and so on, and all the people coming into the market after graduation, I don't think that pool will ever be empty.
What might be empty are people with the exact qualifications a company may want, but all that needs to be done is a little retraining.
If companies insist on wanting someone with the exact, no-other-options, candidate for a position and are unwilling to offer training, they deserve to go under.
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There is no labor shortage in engineering. It is fake, look at the universities, pushing out 10's of thousands of engineers every year. The problem is people like getting paid in the US and companies don't like paying. So they make this crap up about it, hire someone from outside the US willing to do an engineering job for pennies of what a US engineer would do it for.
Again: there is no shortage, just cheap companies that don't want to pay its employees. e.g. the average starting salary for a mech. eng
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Actually, yes. Especially if the work is steady there. I worked as an Engineer in West Virginia, a decade ago. No cut in salary from DC, but my salary went a whole lot further. A real house, rather than an apartment or a townhouse. A more relaxed lifestyle.
On the other hand, the dance club scene sucked, had to go an hour up the interstate to Morgantown and WVU, unless I wanted to do a country/western place. And you learned to rely on Amazon for anything not generally found in a Wally World or generi
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Re:Labor shortage in engineering? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you pay enough, the workers will come. The problem isn't a labor shortage, it's companies who've been spoiled on cheap labor for so long that they offer workers peanut salaries, refuse to pay relocation costs, offer no training and shit benefits--then run to Congress begging for more H1B's when they can't find American workers.
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So let's say you need core Java programmers in Charlotte, and can't find them. Now, under this law, you can't bring in people from Bangalore either. So are you likely to find them in SC or WV or AL?
Well, the research triangle in NC is bound to have some people that you can attract. You're close enough to ATL which has a pretty good tech industry (not to mention GA Tech for recent grads). A little bit further west and you have Huntsville which has a ridiculous amount of PhDs (many with smart kids who probably went into tech) and Nashville which has a reputable school in Vandy. Any major college like Duke, UNC, SC, UT, Vandy, UGA, Ga Tech, Auburn, Bama, Clemson, etc will have CS programs, and many of
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As I understand the proposed law, you CAN bring them in from Bangalore IF you can show you can't hire them in the US ... AND you pay them a high enough wage.
So what's it worth to you? If you want cheap labor, too bad. On the other hand if you have a critical need and you're willing to pay for it, you're good to go.
Re:Does this bill mean.... (Score:5, Informative)
This has nothing to do with Permanent Residents, they aren't here on H-1B visas
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Yes, it's legal in the US to not hire people who are not entitled to work in the country.
If Congress passes (and the President signs) a law changing who is entitled to work here, then the employers must also deal with that.
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1. It is not the corporations making/changing the law. So it cannot be their fault even *if* it was determined to be discrimination (it won't)
2. It is the H1B that is needed in order for them to live and work in the US... they wouldn't need the H1B visa if they were permanent legal residents
3. FTS states that the Bill will effectively double the minimum wage requirement in order to make it less cost effective to bring "talent" from another country. That is applying the same requirement despite country of or
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Well... yes... but I think you know what I mean
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I am no fan of the Dems, but does this bill say anything beyond the visas in question? In particular, does it say anything about the countries of origin, being tougher on Indians than they might be on, say, Romanians or Swedes?
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When management can pay $20,000 a year to a worker in the Philippines to write code, what incentive is there for me to learn how to write code? I can't beat $20,000 a year.
[John]
Re:OMG (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm, have you *seen* the code from such locales?
Sure, you will have rockstars there as well (I know quite a few living in Pune - they're trying to move here), but for every rockstar, you have something like 10,000 total incompetents whose code will require a massive overhaul just to get built without fatal errors.
Usually ends up costing more than its worth once you add it all up.
Re:OMG (Score:4, Informative)
Easy. You get to be one of the guys they hire to fix that crap code and process. EVERY project I have ever worked on with overseas code resources has had massive problems with the quality of code that is returned.
The same cycle always holds true: First the overseas resources are given full tasks to complete. Then the returned code is total shit and doesn't do what was asked. So the tasks are broken down into smaller chunks, and those still don't work. Then the resources are asked to provide procedures and subroutines written to a rigid spec, and 70% of those finally work. Then the company realizes that they're paying experienced software engineers over here to spend hours a day breaking things into small enough chunks that the overseas people will *probably* not screw up and the amount of time wasted is enormous, plus those software engineers could just do it themselves in a fraction of the time.
So the company stops offshoring after wasting a couple of years of time and god knows how much money.
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Americans farm out a lot of stuff, ranging from making our clothes to picking our tomatoes.
It has nothing to do with Americans not knowing how to do something but rather Americans aren't really interesting in sewing shirts in a sweatshop or picking tomatoes in the hot sun. So we hire people who are willing to do those things.
Not really any different than my hiring my maid to clean my house for $3/hr so I can do something more enjoyable.
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Is that why there are so many Americans working 3 burger flipping jobs just to keep alive and pay the rent?
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If you are hiring someone in the US for $3 an hour you are a monster. I hope you are exaggerating, otherwise please take a second to think of how you are devaluing human life and decency.
It isn't that American's "don't want to do the job" it's that they "don't want to the job for a non-living wage".
12 hours a day for $3 an hour isn't going to pay for any type of decent living condition in America. Acting like a feudal lord and being oh-so-beneficent as to allow the peasants to work for peanuts isn't somet
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Yeah, ask the poor fucks at Disney [chicagotribune.com] what they think about the idea that H1B's don't replace American workers.
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If there are "No Americans" how are "more Americans riffed" every six months or so?
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To increase wages, you need to...
An increase in cash wages decreases the number of jobs by concentrating the same money into fewer hands. You can issue more money, increasing wages by raising product prices (if all wages go up by 10%, then all prices must go up by 10% to generate the revenue to pay the salaries); that does nothing.
Money is just a proxy for labor. The question is really how much time you work to buy a product. If you make $20/hr and a pr
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60k for a bay area job? what a joke!!!
I make $50K+ per year and live in a studio apartment by myself in Silicon Valley. If you live a modest lifestyle, you can do well here. But if you want to pursue the American Dream of having it all (i.e., big house, big cars, big wife and big kids), you need to earn big bucks for that.
Also sleeping on the floor?
Some people are willing to sacrifice to achieve their goals. I've known engineers who slept on floors to save up for a down payment on a $1M+ house in Silicon Valley.