Job Fraud by US IT Employers

[DynV]

A 10$ / day Indian programmer ? Anyway serious companies do serious business and the others start by exploiting employees, then their clients and eventually loose their business.

Je vous salue du Québec !

[keencomputer]

This is sick. I myself an immigrant, this is not fair.

Tapas Shome System Software Engineer Keen Computer Solutions 1408 Erin Street Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada R3E 2S8 http://www.keencomputer.com

[Bob1763b]

Of course, I see a little headline like this show up in Gmail this morning: Hire Programmers Offshore - www.supportresort.net - Quality Indian .NET Programmers From $3.36 per hour. It's easy! That's what American companies want to see. Labor that's almost $3/hr less than the current minimum wage. I mean, how else would the CEO be able to make his yacht payment? ~bob

[ednrgc]

Nishant Sivakumar wrote:

Yes, but can you blame them for doing so if that's the only legal way they can hire programmers they want at the rate they can afford?

YES!!!! It's illegal, period.

[ednrgc]

The law is written in black and white. This is a black and white issue. I hope the legal hammer falls hard on them.

[ednrgc]

Nishant Sivakumar wrote:

But I just hope people don't translate that to meaning that every H1B or Green Card employee here is a programmer who's stealing a job from a skilled American citizen.

Even though that's not the issue, it's cases like this that give some people that impression.

[ednrgc]

I personally know 3 friends that have lost their jobs to outsourcing several years ago. They all have great programming skills. Of the 3, 2 eventually lost their houses, because they were unable to find another job in a timely manner. Someone explain to me how cases like this benefit the U.S. economy.

[JamminJimE]

Nish, I am sorry, but this is killing me to read. I was just going to browse through the responses and keep my mouth shut, but I can't. I used to work for one of the Fortune 100 companies here in the states. They are one of the top supporters of H1B visas. I was there as a contractor. I was not even a developer at the time, but a simple PC support guy. I ran the entire IT department for this facility and 2 satellite facilities as well. I was also told that there was -0% chance I would ever be hired as an employee because of the cost (salary, benefits, vacation, paperwork, etc). I WATCHED as this company let 3 kids on a college work/study program go and replaced them with 4 H1B visa candidates. These kids were studying to become electrical engineers (I know, not developers, but the same principal applies) and were removed from this facility so they could be replaced by less expensive work force. These kids were very good at what they did and they all 3 worked very hard! The candidates they brought in did not even speak english. Three of them had to talk to the fourth and the fourth had to try to convey his thoughts in a VERY broken English. Now, before anyone starts screaming racism, stop. I couldn't care any less what color your skin is or how you pronounce your words. That has NOTHING to do with it. I grew up as a "military brat" and was raised around people of all ethnic backgrounds. If I don't like someone, it's because they are an @$$hole, not because their skin is not a pink color. Companies are simply looking for ways to cut there costs so their upper management can continue to enjoy $1M bonuses and expensive trips to exotic locations for "business meetings". Big business has shelved their ethics to promote a better bottom line while not having to reduce their C?O's (CEO, CIO, CFO, CTO, and whomever else) benefits packages. I worked as a developer for a small company in North Carolina and I watched their CEO and CIO squander money away on renting luxury yachts, renting yacht clubs for training camps, etc and they were spending this money on EXISTING CLIENTS!! All the while, my profit sharing check went further and further down until it finally hit $0.00. Since becoming a full-time, professional developer, I have interviewed for quite a number of jobs in the state of Florida. I was actually offered a developer job in Ft. Lauderdale, FL for $45k/yr doing VB.NET and SQL Server developement. The salary they offered me wouldn't have gotten me a 2BR apartment within 15 miles of

[Grimolfr]

Christian Graus wrote:

But, it's still the case that if an employer can get someone good for less, it is to their benefit to do so.

In my experience, most employers don't actually know the difference between a good developer and a not-so-good developer. As long as they get reams of code, they believe they've gotten value. Functionality, maintainability, and even ROI are all afterthoughts.

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Grim

(aka Toby)

MCDBA, MCSD, MCP+SB

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[jratcliff7740]

The Law is never black or white. The Law is what can be proven in a courtroom or settled between two lawers. When your sued, you get a quick lession in the black and white nature of the law.

[James R Twine]

Nishant Sivakumar wrote:

[...] On the other side, you see companies complaining that they are finding it extremely difficult to hire quality developers. [...] You cannot have a skilled pool of unemployed candidates and also have unfilled job openings together, can you?

Of course you can, and here is how...  Companies are looking for high-quality developers.  High-quality developers (should) produce higher-quality code, resulting in better designs, more robust and better performing implementations, less defects.  But they no longer believe that they need to actually pay a high-quality salary to get them.  The old adage you get what you pay for seems to have been forgotten.    Have a look at a site like Monster, and compare titles against salary ranges.  Companies are looking for senior-level developers for only $40-60K, and principal-level developers for only $60-80K.  Throw in 2 weeks of vacation time, minimal 401K participation, no profit sharing or bonus plan and you can quickly see that this is not a great deal for someone that has been developing software professionally for more than 15 years.    To better explain why that is not a great deal, remember that many older and experienced (i.e. senior- and principal-level) developers are not the cheap-1-bedroom-basement-apartment-living-ramen-noodle-eating-20-somethings that they used to be.    Many are now married, and/or have kids, and/or have a newer car, and/or have a mortgage, and/or have more debt.  It is not that they do not want to take a pay cut, it is that they simply cannot take a pay cut.  When you have a house, wife and kids, you cannot just up and move to a smaller apartment on a whim all that easily (ask anyone that has a house - storage would be a nightmare).    As to why we are in this situation, I am not going to provide any comments because it will only start a flame war.    Peace!

-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * * If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Avoid driving a vehicle taller than you and remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Ro

[James R Twine]

Joe Woodbury wrote:

[...] the law requires employers to pay H1B visa holders comparable salaries as non-visa holders.

Sounds like another reason to drop salaries - it makes the H1Bs even cheaper... :/    Peace!

-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * * If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Avoid driving a vehicle taller than you and remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
See DeleteFXPFiles

[Grimolfr]

Joe Woodbury wrote:

comparable salaries as non-visa holders.

Are you aware that the DOL thinks the average salary for a lawyer is about $25/hr? Would you feel comfortable hiring a $25/hr lawyer to keep you out of jail? And yet companies in the U.S. expect $15/hr "developers" to create HAL 9000 in a week.

---

Grim

(aka Toby)

MCDBA, MCSD, MCP+SB

Need a Second Life?[^]

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[Alan Balkany]

This has happened because laws supported by BOTH the Republicans and the Democrats allow it to happen. I call this bipartisian economic treason against American workers. VOTE GREEN!

[DVeit]

In some cases many of the positions go unfilled because of the salary that the company is advertising. During the .com boom I worked with a foreign student who was completing his MBA specializing in Tech Management. After graduating a Fortune 500 company hired him on an H1B visa as an IT Director in Mountain View... for $60k a year. There's no way they could have found a senior level manager in the Bay for that much in the late 90's short of an H1B worker.

[Jasmine2501]

It is a problem with the decision-makers in HR and management. They don't know good people when they see them, and they've probably spent money on bad people in the past. This makes it hard to make a decision and hire someone who is quality, because we know who we are and we want more money, won't put up with BS, etc. I've turned down offers simply because of corporate BS that I observed in the interview, and I thought "I don't want to work at any place that, for example, schedules interviews and then isn't ready when I show up" - I like a tight ship, and I'm in demand enough that I can turn down things I don't like. Then there is the other group of people, who are generally just starting out, and they are hard to hire because they don't have any experience at all, are highly likely to screw something up, take massive amounts of time away from other developers, and cost only a little bit less. If you take those two groups - the highly qualified and expensive, the not-as-skilled and a little cheaper - and you add this third group, it becomes a real problem. The third group is "not qualified and expensive" - HR people live in fear of this group. Often, these people seem qualified up until the day they get fired, so if someone has been burned by this situation before, they are reluctant to hire people who look qualified for the job, because they still can't tell if the person actually is worth it or not. So, it's not as simple as having a bunch of holes and a bunch of pegs. I wrote about some things job-seekers can do: Blog Post Clickety[^] There's another issue that bothers me and could be contributing to the problem: recruiters just don't care about finding qualified people... they expect you to find them. And they still want their commission. If you can avoid it, don't go through recruiters and go straight to the company. See this: Open letter to recruiters[^]

"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles.

[Jasmine2501]

No but I would believe the actual value of a lawyer is closer to $25 an hour than to what they actually charge. I've never got any lawyering done where I didn't walk away feeling like I paid too much, and like I probably could have done it myself. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that lawyering is all about the law, and someone from another country is likely to be completely unfamiliar with our laws. And finally... as an American citizen, I can tell you it really, really bugs me when I see people come over here from other countries and live the high life, when there were American citizens and immigrants already here who need those jobs and money a lot more. I would bet that half of the people I've met from other countries, who are over here working a job, were from wealthy families to begin with, and they have no business coming over here and making a grab at OUR MONEY, when they have so much to begin with. The people who are sneaking across the border with nothing because they can't get a bowl of rice once a day for their kids... those people need the jobs. The people who are already wealthy can stay where they are and be fine. They don't need our jobs, and I'd much rather spend the money to train someone for a better life, than shell out that money to someone who doesn't need it. I think if you're going to come here for the work, you should be planning to stay. So I would abolish the H1-B program and make everyone get green cards.

"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles.

[Gates VP]

Pretty disgusting, but not surprising. And if you want to know why this is happening, it's b/c big companies are responsible for generating returns for their stockholders. They are bound to pay as little as possible wherever possible, that's their job. Why? b/c people like you and I have money in stocks (or mutual funds) and any of us with any common stock likely owns a small piece of a company that one of the attendees was working for. Those people are there doing their jobs trying to find adequate candidates at the best price they can find. And they're doing that so that we can make more money on our stocks. So, is it unethical, maybe kind of sick? Probably. But it's coming from people in the RICHEST country in the world. All of us IT guys whining about outsourcing are not really seeing the big picture very well. An American programmer is making 10-20 times what equivalent programmers are making in India or Ukraine. And with modern tech that job can literally be completed anywhere in the world. The USD is consistently creeping downwards and it will continue to do so until we reach some parity on the international scale. The CDN will follow closely, but it will recover much quicker as places like China get richer and start buying Canadian goods. The American way of life for the past 40 years has been completely unsustainable, they owe money to everybody and that's not changing any time soon. This article is just one of many symptoms of the slide. Gates VP

[rhward]

Still rationalizing, Nish? Employers like the conditions under which non-citizens work, and they're right. Citizens have become too expensive in many ways, not just salary. That's the problem that needs fixing, and hiring non-citizens into increasingly subservient positions is not the answer. Moving away from that is what the country is about. Knocking out some irritating pillars always seems like a great idea, until you figure out they're holding up the roof. :) Il n'y a pas des sots si incommodes que ceux qui ont de l'esprit!

[Joe Woodbury]

Grimolfr wrote:

Are you aware that the DOL thinks the average salary for a lawyer is about $25/hr?

Not true. Furthermore, DOL does sampling of all the jobs available and publishes a median. These jobs will include all sorts of types of jobs within a category. The number of H1B visa holders is not significant enough to suppress wages significantly. There is far more variation simply due to the sizes and demands of individual companies than anything else. (A small company may not be able to pay what a large company does, but may have more interesting work.) I've had three jobs in the last seven years. My salary has varied by just under 20% (add benefits and the swing has been even larger.) Oddly, the highest paying job is the only one where there were several H1B visa holders and they were paid comparable to the rest of us.

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke