Indian Software Firm to Outsource to U.S. 500 computer programmers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14204620&ft=1&f=1001&sc=emaf

by Adam Davidson

Morning Edition, September 6, 2007 ·

Indian software firm Wipro plans to open a big software design center in Atlanta. The Bangalore, India-based firm expects to hire around 500 computer programmers in the next three years. It's a curious turnabout from the much more familiar story: a U.S. software company creating jobs in India.

[MadMaddie]

1. This is a sad reality isn't it?

[Yael]

2. Another one just opened (or is about to) in Ohio

They are calling it Insourcing. Foreign countries hiring domestic workers to work on contract jobs.

[jody]

3. This must be a mistake, PC World reports "IT Staff Shortage Predicted", 21 Aug 07.

"IT Staff Shortage Predicted"

According to a July 2007 survey by Gartner Group of 225 U.S.-based organizations, 66 percent projected some level of increase in IT staff looking 12 months forward. This is up from 61 percent in 2006. The H1-B visa program, which allows U.S. firms to petition for workers from abroad, has been one avenue of meeting this demand. But the number of positions needing to be filled is seemingly way greater than the allowable quota imposed by Congress.

* * * * * * * * * *

H-1B visa petitions by U.S. firms began six months before the start of the Government's 2007 fiscal year in October of 2006. This date fell on a Sunday. By noon on the following Tuesday, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had received more than 130,000 H1-B petitions for workers. That is more than two petitions for every available visa. Yes, you heard that right -- in one day the quota was exceeded.

* * * * * * * * * *

"The H-1B visas play right into the hands of large corporations," says Russ Nelson, vice president of an open source firm and member of the Open Source Software Institute. "First, because they make it more expensive to hire the worker you want because of the H-1B overhead. Second, they tie the worker to the corporation that created the job, so the worker is not free to change jobs. Since most open source firms are small to medium companies, the H-1B program generally hurts them. I don't understand what problem is being solved by restricting immigration. If somebody wants to come to our country and work hard, I see no reason to stop them."

* * * * * * * * * *

Whether a prospective hire has a degree or not, they are just hard to find. The anonymous open source developer we spoke about earlier explained that his job was posted for two years before he filled it on an H1-B visa after jumping through all of the hoops in the application process. "It really put me off, working here," he explains. "I had considered working in Canada."

[OhioChick]

4. They'll

just have the H1B's meet them at their design center in Atlanta.