What's Wrong With This Picture?

[OhioChick]

Wed, 04/09/2008 - 4:17pm

Unemployment is rising and willing workers can't find jobs, yet the government is granting H1-B visas, viz, work permits to foreign nationals.

Then when they are finished, they return to their country of origin taking the intellectual capital out of this country, creating yet another vacuum to be filled by another foreign national at a later date.

In the mean time, we then have to compete with our own technology when we need that advantage here. It doesn't make sense.

H1B visas are the opiate of the high tech industry - brief pleasure followed by long recoveries.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/26786

[fasttense]

1. You can thank Bill Gates for leading the charge

on the assault on American workers.

If it weren't for American workers, he wouldn't be a billionaire right now. He makes billions because of America and he still wants to destroy the American middle class.

Does the man know what the words loyalty and patriotism mean? His actions indicate he doesn't know what country it was that gave him a chance to be more than just a bad lawyer.

[elleng]

2. How is Gates

responsible for what businesses and the government have done? I think I've missed something.

[Jane Austin]

3. He personally lobbied Congress for a doubling

of these visas with a 20% increase in each succeeding year.

[OhioChick]

4. Sure Did. n/t

[dbmk]

5. Might not make sense in the very long term. But on the short it prob. does.

"Unemployment is rising and willing workers can't find jobs, yet the government is granting H1-B visas, viz, work permits to foreign nationals."

The question is though if those two groups match up, in terms of skills and education. I'm in the middle of reading The Audacity of Hope - and Obama visits Google, where they tell him that they would love to hire more americans. But the skillset they need is simply not available in large enough quantities on US soil. And that story is heard in other countries in the western hemisphere too.

You can of course always argue that the companies should then take a more proactive approach in making that happen - but how much they do that, if they do, I cannot say.

In general, making college WAY more affordable would be a good start perhaps. And finding a way to keep kids in high school.

And figure out why you/we didn't see the opportunities and demands coming, when people in countries like India figured it several years ago.

[OhioChick]

6. "But the skillset they need is simply not available in large enough quantities on US soil."

I Disagree.

There are many reputable studies out that state there is no shortage of qualified US citizens willing to do these jobs. It's an excuse on the part of corporations for cheap labor.

Study: There Is No Shortage of U.S. Engineers

A new study argues that the offshoring of U.S. jobs is caused by cost savings and not a shortage of U.S. engineers or better education in China. However, the study warns that the United States is losing its global edge.
A commonly heard defense in the arguments that surround U.S. companies that offshore high-tech and engineering jobs is that the U.S. math and science education system is not producing a sufficient number of engineers to fill a corporations needs.

However, a new study from Duke University calls this argument bunk, stating that there is no shortage of engineers in the United States, and that offshoring is all about cost savings.

This report, entitled "Issues in Science and Technology" and published in the latest National Academy of Sciences magazine further explores the topic of engineering graduation rates of India, China and the United States, the subject of a 2005 Duke study.

In the report, concerns are raised that China is racing ahead of both the United States and India in its ability to perform basic research. It also asserts that the United States is risking losing its global edge by outsourcing critical R&D and India is falling behind by playing politics with education. Meanwhile, it considers China well-positioned for the future.

Dukes 2005 study corrected a long-heard myth about India and China graduating 12 times as many engineers as the United States, finding instead that the United States graduates a comparable number.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Careers/Study-There-Is-No-Shortage-of-US-Engineers/

[dbmk]

9. All true, but I fail to see what offshoring has to do with work visas for work inside the US? n/te

[OhioChick]

11. Well,

If work is being offshored/outsourced in record numbers....and you have an incredible amount of foreigners that want to come into the country on work visas.....what is left for the "skilled" citizens here?

[AdHocSolver]

8. By their policy of not hiring American programmers, they drove people out of the IT field.

Fewer people are studying computer programming because the companies are not hiring American programmers. Why spend four years studying programming if there are few jobs in the field.

Even seven or eight years ago, there were three or four pages of ads for programmers in our local paper. Nowadays there aren't even three columns of ads for computer related jobs.

Eight years ago, I worked for a company that brought Chinese engineers to the U.S. The intention was to train these engineers to set up factories in China after teaching them the technology used by the business.

These guys were NOT especially talented. In talking with one of them, I discovered he was very nervous about not doing well. His entire future career rested on his experience at this company. It occurred to me that one reason for importing this labor is that these aliens can be sent back to China or India with a bad reference, and so these aliens are extremely pliant and subservient towards their American bosses.

[dbmk]

10. 7-8-9 years ago

..everyone and their grandmother was involved in dot-coms and they dragged people off the street to program. Then the bubble burst.

The skill set they are looking for today, go a bit beyond being able to put together 2 lines of code.
The average programmer of 2000 is a joke compared to the skillset needed today.

The science part in computer science is more important than ever to many of the companies looking abroad.

I find it hard to beleive that any company would find it economically and strategically sane to pick the foreigner if they can get a US citizen with the same qualifications.

[onethatcares]

7. you can also thank the dumbing down of the

American education system where there is more attention to passing a standardized test than to being able to solve problems and communicate outside the box. Foreign workers are only imported to drive the cost of labor down, many are used to working for less than an American would and there is where the companies play it out.

[lame54]

12. You promised me a picture - Now you expect me to read?...

:argh:

[OhioChick]

13. Oh Dammit......How's This? lol

[lame54]

14. Beautiful

[OhioChick]

15. Needs a good home..... n/t