A couple of pro-H1B articles by Americans
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Read your mind? This presupposes you have one. The jury's still out on that. But if it's established that you do, I assure you that not reading your mind is high on my list of precepts to live by.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Atta boy oakman. *chuckle
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One doesn't have to lie. If I have a H1-B visa and I interview with another employer, that employer has to get a fresh H1-B for me before he can hire me. H1-B visas are employer-specific. So, I continue working at my current employer while a fresh visa gets processed by the new employer. That used to take a minimum of three months. In the meanwhile, I might interview with yet another employer and have another H1-B visa in process. Nothing wrong, illegal, immoral or fattening so far! ;P If and when an alternate offer comes along, my situation might be such that I have to decline it but I would have an H1-B approved for that employer. This was the situation for quite a few Indian programmers in 200/2001. In fact, by the time the new visa gets approved, the employer might have lost a client and not be able to hire me. Nobody knows how many of the 115,000 H1-B visas in 2000 were duplicates. The employer has to report termination of an H1-B employee to Immigration but INS (or whatever it is called now) didn't update its books to say a visa was freed up and so available for somebody else. So much of the statistics on H1-B employees is so skewed as to be totally unreliable.
your original post said: "they had multiple H1-B visas from several different (usually, Indian outsourcing) companies and could jump sjip at the first opportunity." Now you tell a very different tale. Somehow, I think your first post contained a more general truth than this latest revision.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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I can't speak for the original poster, but I'll put forward my own proposition. A H1B's who is a better candidate that the US applicants taking jobs is good for the local and national economy because it a) as a higher probability of making a better product b) which in turn generates more revenue, which increases company and economic growth, allowing positions to open up to the lesser skilled US workers. I have no proof, but it sounds reasonable enough to me. Which is similar to what the original blog posters were on about. They found better suited overseas applicants, but the difficulty or impossibility in employing them made the less-suitable US applicants the only option, to the detriment of their business. It strikes me that hiring an employee that is unsuitable could potentially be very bad if the cost of training was too high for the business endeavor to survive. On the flip side it could be very good if the employeer trains them the employee hangs around. - Phil
It's really very simple...how much money are you going to make for the company that is hiring you? If you provide enough value, they will pay. But the problem is that just the fact that you can program well doesn't create that value. No. The software must do something new AND very valuable...much more valuable than what you can get out of a box. Basically, all the huge innovative strides have been accomplished. It's the difference between the guys who invented and developed the (insert favorite world-changing invention here) and the guys that work on the assembly line producing it. Which one are you? From what I can tell, most programmers are the assembly-line variety, albeit it's an intellectual assembly-line. You may be highly skilled, but what differentiates you from the highly-skilled welder working in the Ford plant? When you get right down to it, not much. You even share the same mindset :) The reality is simple. it doesn't require an intellectual pissing contest to get to the bottom of it. All it requires is for some people to face the facts. This is the real world, and 'the system' is not broken. It's the same as it has always been. For the record, I'm an American, and I'm tired of the whining.
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If you're going to make the argument about the part not representing the whole, then you can hardly suggest that any given company hiring H1-B holders won't pay qualified locals market rates. Some companies may be taking that approach, some may not. US citizen programmers might pay more tax if they indeed earned more, but since you don't cite any of the studies you mention, that's up for debate as a proposition. Funds sent overseas are only a bad thing on a micro-economic basis - overall, the more dollars floating around the world, the better for the US economy.
citation: http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/back1305.html[^] If you read this, it should make it clear than many (not necessarily all) employers pay bargain basement wages to H1Bs, and end your "debate," all in one fell swoop. As to your proposition that dollars going to folks overseas is better for the U.S. economy than dollars being spent in this country - what are you smoking and can I have some? :laugh:
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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It's really very simple...how much money are you going to make for the company that is hiring you? If you provide enough value, they will pay. But the problem is that just the fact that you can program well doesn't create that value. No. The software must do something new AND very valuable...much more valuable than what you can get out of a box. Basically, all the huge innovative strides have been accomplished. It's the difference between the guys who invented and developed the (insert favorite world-changing invention here) and the guys that work on the assembly line producing it. Which one are you? From what I can tell, most programmers are the assembly-line variety, albeit it's an intellectual assembly-line. You may be highly skilled, but what differentiates you from the highly-skilled welder working in the Ford plant? When you get right down to it, not much. You even share the same mindset :) The reality is simple. it doesn't require an intellectual pissing contest to get to the bottom of it. All it requires is for some people to face the facts. This is the real world, and 'the system' is not broken. It's the same as it has always been. For the record, I'm an American, and I'm tired of the whining.
I reckon that is a great overview. It's not warm and fuzzy, and paints an accurate picture. - Phil
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your original post said: "they had multiple H1-B visas from several different (usually, Indian outsourcing) companies and could jump sjip at the first opportunity." Now you tell a very different tale. Somehow, I think your first post contained a more general truth than this latest revision.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
In the first post, I provided my viewpoint as their manager and the one who was subject to pressures to pay more money than my budget could afford. In the second post, I explained how one gets more than one H1-B visa... sometimes intentional, sometimes not so. If you think your current company is shaky, or the job was misrepresented to you, or you don't want to work 60-hour weeks despite getting overtime pay, etc., you apply for another job and have a second H1 visa. I know people for whom companies get H1 visas in India but do not send them to the US because the contract didn't come through. Those guys also might come on a different company's H1 and thus have two H1 visas stamped on their passport. Most companies are legit when it comes to visa status for their employees. The company I worked for was raided by INS and we got a clean bill of health. The business is too valuable to risk it on a couple of shady visa deals.
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John Cardinal wrote:
Yup, exactly right. The bitching heard in response to this kind of thinking comes primarily from the underemployed who, as is typical for most people, prefer to point the blame at others rather than look closely at themselves
You really have no idea what is going on, do you? Well, you just keep telling yourself that, right up until you're asked to train your replacement.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Oakman wrote:
You really have no idea what is going on, do you? Well, you just keep telling yourself that, right up until you're asked to train your replacement.
I've always been one of those people that never had a problem getting a job or keeping one. I'll leave the fear mongering and paranoia to those that are much more deservedly accustomed to it. ;)
"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon
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Lol @ Oakman!! I gotta hand it to you for vehemently sticking to your stance. Somewhere along I read that you were in the army. Kudos! So you're the friendly neighborhood gun totting trigger happy fire Klan punk, who has an "all trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again" warning sign in his front yard. NICE!!! -- modified at 15:33 Tuesday 10th July, 2007
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Most folks who come to the US from India on H1-B visas come from a middle-class background and do not have to support their families back home financially. The cab drivers in New York or Chicago are the ones sending money home to their families and they are not here on H1-B. The vast majority of remittances to India come from blue-collar workers employed in the Middle East. Just like low-skilled Hispanic immigrants working as domestics or agricultural workers in the US repatriate money to Mexico/Central American countries.
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Before you start quoting Microsoft's party line and call bullsh!t on me, I suggest you learn a little history. M$FT, since the 1990's, has agressively pursued hiring on the cheap. At first that meant contractors so they wouldn't have to pay benefits and now it means H1Bs because they are the cheapest type of programmer around. M$FT is building their campus in Canada to punish the US for not granting their desire for unlimited H1Bs. They would have had to build the campus and increased their staff-size regardless. But this way they get to spit in Lou Dobbs's eye.
John Cardinal wrote:
Every thing about the h1b visa program points to it.
Do you have any clue as to how badly the H1B program is being abused? Its so rampant that it's being used as one of the reasons MSFT and Oracle, etc want the brakes taken off the number that can be brought into this country.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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As a parent with grown children I personally think it's just as big a mistake to solely blame the parents for the child's choices as it is to solely blame society, which I don't but I realize that that may not have been as clearly stated in my earlier post as it should have been. I was trying to say that I think any shortage of good, qualified American developers is a systemic problem and that one aspect of that problem is that we've created a situation where more respect, attention, and rewards appear to come easier and faster to folks in professions that I tend to lump together and call "entertainment". I believe, right or wrong, that this contributes to the confusion young people experience when it comes time to make choices regarding their careers. Do you shoot for the glossy, sexy option or go with the plodding, geeky option? Again, this is a matter of perception but think about what's being sold hard every day to this demographic. I think all too many of them are looking at the former option and that can't be laid entirely at their parents' feet.
Oh I fully understood your point, I just think that there are far too many parents throwing up their hands and saying "what can I do?". My parents taught me to be indpendant and think for myself and it resulted in good choices and bad ones but I can honestly say that the society I grew up in had zero influence on my choice of career. I was the only guy for many miles around that had any interest in computers or electronics or science at all. Oddly enough I've been watching this show called "The dog whisperer", odd because I dislike dogs, but it's extremely interesting to watch the psychology involved. Basically people have a "problem" dog and this guy comes in who had a very deep and masterful understanding of dog behaviour and psychology and the relationship between owners and their dogs and how it's influencing everything the dog does. Inevitably he gets results fast and in every case he is actually training the owner, not the dog. In nearly all cases he's teaching the owner how to be a "pack leader" that is to say the assertive member of the relationship, not the passive one. The person who sets boundaries and limitations, dogs respect and respond positively to that big time and so do children. It's a little microcosm of parenting in modern society. Those same type of people can be seen in action as parents: "What can I do he gets it from playing video games / watching tv / school / bad friends etc etc etc" In other words the finger is pointed at everything under the sun with the single exception of themselves. The big picture is that the U.S. and most of western society has had it so easy for so long that a sort of critical mass of excess and entitlement and laziness has creaped in almost entirely un-noticed and now the inevitable consequences are being seen. Out the window are personal responsibility, hard work, ethics etc etc. It's a cycle, things will get crappy, people will regain their sense of purpose and all the other things they've lost and work their way out of it, in a few decades things will go to hell once again etc etc. We just happen to be at or very near the peak or trough depending on your point of view.
"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon
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MartyK2007 wrote:
I beleive that in a particular US companies catchment/commuting area there may occasionally be no US programmers trained or experianced enough to fulfil a roll.
And so it's better to import someone who speaks English badly from across and ocean, than to import someone from the next-but-one commuting area. I understand now.
MartyK2007 wrote:
I think this particular simile is in poor taste and dont agree with your logic that this constututes a simile based on what we had previously spoken about.
I am oh-so-sorry I offended you. And you don't get to agree or disagree about whether or not something is a simile, perhaps you meant to say that in addition to being inappropriate (according to you), it was also inaccurate (according to you). Perhaps then, we can agree that you can't handle the truth and let it go at that?
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Good morning,
Oakman wrote:
And so it's better to import someone who speaks English badly from across and ocean, than to import someone from the next-but-one commuting area.
No its not, assuming you can import someone from the next-but-one commuting area. This is what H1'bs are about - What to do when you cant find any US citizen willing to be imported. Now this visa may have been used improperly for "cheap labour" - I dont know. What I am saying is however if it is the problem then why not keep the H1bs but change the law so no one can hire them as cheap labour (parity of wages would remove this complaint) and then you get back the , for want of a better word , "Purity" and spirit of the H1b legislation.
Oakman wrote:
I am oh-so-sorry I offended you
You didnt offend me - It may have offended some of the survivors of WW2 , I dont know - it was just in bad taste in my opinion.
Oakman wrote:
And you don't get to agree or disagree about whether or not something is a simile
Actually you can, a simile is an example of 2 statements that are different from each other except in one logical way. I dont think your simile met that test because I disagree with your "one logical way".
Oakman wrote:
(according to you),
lets be honest everyone here is expressing an opinion according to themselves , unless of course they quote other people , so yes when I says things its according to me, just like when you write things.
Oakman wrote:
Perhaps then, we can agree that you can't handle the truth and let it go at t
I dont see that - what truth cant I handle and what makes you think I cant handle it?? thanks Martin
life is a bowl of cherries go on take a byte
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Good morning,
Oakman wrote:
And so it's better to import someone who speaks English badly from across and ocean, than to import someone from the next-but-one commuting area.
No its not, assuming you can import someone from the next-but-one commuting area. This is what H1'bs are about - What to do when you cant find any US citizen willing to be imported. Now this visa may have been used improperly for "cheap labour" - I dont know. What I am saying is however if it is the problem then why not keep the H1bs but change the law so no one can hire them as cheap labour (parity of wages would remove this complaint) and then you get back the , for want of a better word , "Purity" and spirit of the H1b legislation.
Oakman wrote:
I am oh-so-sorry I offended you
You didnt offend me - It may have offended some of the survivors of WW2 , I dont know - it was just in bad taste in my opinion.
Oakman wrote:
And you don't get to agree or disagree about whether or not something is a simile
Actually you can, a simile is an example of 2 statements that are different from each other except in one logical way. I dont think your simile met that test because I disagree with your "one logical way".
Oakman wrote:
(according to you),
lets be honest everyone here is expressing an opinion according to themselves , unless of course they quote other people , so yes when I says things its according to me, just like when you write things.
Oakman wrote:
Perhaps then, we can agree that you can't handle the truth and let it go at t
I dont see that - what truth cant I handle and what makes you think I cant handle it?? thanks Martin
life is a bowl of cherries go on take a byte
MartyK2007 wrote:
No its not, assuming you can import someone from the next-but-one commuting area. This is what H1'bs are about - What to do when you cant find any US citizen willing to be imported. Now this visa may have been used improperly for "cheap labour" - I dont know.
The vast majority of H1Bs are at the bottom of the payscale for their job and state. And therein lies their only attractiveness to employers.
MartyK2007 wrote:
What I am saying is however if it is the problem then why not keep the H1bs but change the law so no one can hire them as cheap labour (parity of wages would remove this complaint) and then you get back the , for want of a better word , "Purity" and spirit of the H1b legislation.
If laws were passed and enforced that required Employers to look for Americans first before talking to H1Bs (there aren't); that forced employers to pay the same wage to H1Bs that they have been paying Americans (they don't); and that considered the use of a body shop contractee to replace an American against the law (there aren't) the H1B program would be of no interest to Employers. Unfortunately even the weak safegards presently on the books are routinely ignored by employers in this country.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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In the first post, I provided my viewpoint as their manager and the one who was subject to pressures to pay more money than my budget could afford. In the second post, I explained how one gets more than one H1-B visa... sometimes intentional, sometimes not so. If you think your current company is shaky, or the job was misrepresented to you, or you don't want to work 60-hour weeks despite getting overtime pay, etc., you apply for another job and have a second H1 visa. I know people for whom companies get H1 visas in India but do not send them to the US because the contract didn't come through. Those guys also might come on a different company's H1 and thus have two H1 visas stamped on their passport. Most companies are legit when it comes to visa status for their employees. The company I worked for was raided by INS and we got a clean bill of health. The business is too valuable to risk it on a couple of shady visa deals.
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MartyK2007 wrote:
No its not, assuming you can import someone from the next-but-one commuting area. This is what H1'bs are about - What to do when you cant find any US citizen willing to be imported. Now this visa may have been used improperly for "cheap labour" - I dont know.
The vast majority of H1Bs are at the bottom of the payscale for their job and state. And therein lies their only attractiveness to employers.
MartyK2007 wrote:
What I am saying is however if it is the problem then why not keep the H1bs but change the law so no one can hire them as cheap labour (parity of wages would remove this complaint) and then you get back the , for want of a better word , "Purity" and spirit of the H1b legislation.
If laws were passed and enforced that required Employers to look for Americans first before talking to H1Bs (there aren't); that forced employers to pay the same wage to H1Bs that they have been paying Americans (they don't); and that considered the use of a body shop contractee to replace an American against the law (there aren't) the H1B program would be of no interest to Employers. Unfortunately even the weak safegards presently on the books are routinely ignored by employers in this country.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Oakman wrote:
The vast majority of H1Bs are at the bottom of the payscale for their job and state
can you cite any research proving that??
Oakman wrote:
the H1B program would be of no interest to Employers
I agree if what you say about h1bs is true (its primary use is for cheap labour) then it would drastically reduce the "love" of the employers for it but I dont think there would be of no interest. There will always be a niche specialism that is hard to find resource for , no matter what the country. does noone lobby for these more stringent rules?? perhaps a new task for you in your spare time:) Martin
life is a bowl of cherries go on take a byte
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Oakman wrote:
You really have no idea what is going on, do you? Well, you just keep telling yourself that, right up until you're asked to train your replacement.
I've always been one of those people that never had a problem getting a job or keeping one. I'll leave the fear mongering and paranoia to those that are much more deservedly accustomed to it. ;)
"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon
John Cardinal wrote:
I've always been one of those people that never had a problem getting a job or keeping one. I'll leave the fear mongering and paranoia to those that are much more deservedly accustomed to it.
You know what, John, I hope that keeps working out for you. Innocence like yours deserves to exist.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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Oh well, I could be wrong, it's all academic to me anyway, if people want to blame ufo's or killer bees who am I to get in the way of that?
"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon
John Cardinal wrote:
Oh well, I could be wrong, it's all academic to me anyway
ROFL what a cheap cop-out. It's so irritating when someone shows up your ignorance, isn't it?
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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Oakman wrote:
The vast majority of H1Bs are at the bottom of the payscale for their job and state
can you cite any research proving that??
Oakman wrote:
the H1B program would be of no interest to Employers
I agree if what you say about h1bs is true (its primary use is for cheap labour) then it would drastically reduce the "love" of the employers for it but I dont think there would be of no interest. There will always be a niche specialism that is hard to find resource for , no matter what the country. does noone lobby for these more stringent rules?? perhaps a new task for you in your spare time:) Martin
life is a bowl of cherries go on take a byte
MartyK2007 wrote:
can you cite any research proving that??
http://www.codeproject.com/script/comments/forums.asp?forumid=1159&tid=0&exp=1&mpp=50&select=2123645#xx2123645xx[^]
MartyK2007 wrote:
There will always be a niche specialism that is hard to find resource for , no matter what the country.
You're right, of course. The same research that find the vast majority of H1Bs getting paid slave wages, shows that 4% of H1Bs make in excess of 100K.
MartyK2007 wrote:
does noone lobby for these more stringent rules?? perhaps a new task for you in your spare time
What do you think I'm doing here - besides p!ss!ng a bunch of people off? :laugh:
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
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citation: http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/back1305.html[^] If you read this, it should make it clear than many (not necessarily all) employers pay bargain basement wages to H1Bs, and end your "debate," all in one fell swoop. As to your proposition that dollars going to folks overseas is better for the U.S. economy than dollars being spent in this country - what are you smoking and can I have some? :laugh:
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Quite a surprise, that an anti-immigration think tank would have concluded that H1-B holders were paid less than natives. If I had the time, I'd be curious to take a look at the DoL data and see if it actually indicates what CIS claims it does. As for dollars going overseas, the US economy benefits from dollars anywhere, and whether it's central bank holdings or campesino holdings, dollars overseas help maintain the practical and currency value of the dollar. I'll happily admit that funds being sent to families overseas don't match the importance of central bank holdings, but at a macro-economic level, it's just as important as local consumer spending.
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Phil Martin... wrote:
less-suitable US applicants. . . .the lesser skilled US workers
Actually, my experience is that far fewer of the bargain-basement H1Bs hired for 50K were worth their paychecks than the 75K - 100K citizens. But you can believe whatever you want about the U.S. programmer.
Jon Information doesn't want to be free. It wants to be sixty-nine cents @ pound.
Oakman wrote:
Actually, my experience is that far fewer of the bargain-basement H1Bs hired for 50K were worth their paychecks than the 75K - 100K citizens. But you can believe whatever you want about the U.S. programmer.
Well there you go, my experience is that they're about equally average, so why wouldn't a rational manager go for average at less cost?