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Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Aug 15th 2005 12:26pm





Already Out On Next Year's H-1B Visas

from the and-so-they'll-stay-home... dept

One thing I've still never fully understood is that the same people who are against the H1B visa program are often the crowd that hates offshoring. However, by limiting the number of smart, educated, technology skilled foreign workers we allow into the US, it just means more of them stay back home where they're more able to work for either US companies -- or, local companies that will compete with US companies. Having the most qualified individuals working for US companies in the US should be a goal. Yet, once again, as we see the H1B visas get snapped up in record time people are complaining about the program. Of course, people often respond by pointing out how companies abuse the H1B program. If that's the case, then the abusers should be punished -- but it doesn't mean the entire program is a problem. We should be doing anything possible to have smart, talented workers come to the US and work here, as that helps the economy.

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  1.  
    identicon
    Wolf Logan, Aug 15th, 2005 @ 1:32pm

    it's a salary issue

    one of the people quoted in the article explained that they used the H1B program because there aren't enough recent college graduates in the technical fields to be hired. that the largest group of unemployed workers (here in silicon valley) are tech workers who would *love* to be hired doesn't enter into it. they don't want to hire experienced workers who might expect decent pay, they want new graduates who work for next to nothing. and if they can't get them, they'll offer the same pay to an H1B applicant, possibly with a much higher degree and some work experience. failing that, they'll offshore the work and claim the cost savings as a business win.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    John, Aug 15th, 2005 @ 2:28pm

    Re: it's a salary issue

    From that description it sounds like the out of work tech workers you describe have simply priced themselves out of the market.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    spam, Aug 15th, 2005 @ 2:34pm

    Re: it's a salary issue

    Sadly, these corporations merely assume that the current crop of out of work engineers will demand top dollar and go for the new H1B/outsource guy anyway.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Cough, Aug 15th, 2005 @ 2:52pm

    Re: it's a salary issue

    Experience used to mean something...Like higher salaries, better treatment, etc... Now, it just means you are first to go when layoffs in prep for offshoring come along. My 2 cents!!

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
    identicon
    Gene Hoffman, Aug 15th, 2005 @ 3:58pm

    Re: it's a salary issue

    This is lame line of argument. Actual experience at my start up trying to hire Perl developers is that the only person out of 7 interviews that could complete our code challenge ended up being an H1-B...

    We'll gladly pay for experience if we could find people who could actually develop in perl to apply for our perl openings. The valley doesn't have a lot of out of work developers of any quality.

    -Gene

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    identicon
    ZonkMeister, Aug 15th, 2005 @ 4:30pm

    hmm,

    There are like 300 thou of H1Bs slumped in the biggest red tape waiting for a green card. I am speculating here but it might be that they will stay that way for a long time because if they would be granted green cards any time soon they could drive up the market by switching to more competitive salaries.

     

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  7.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 16th, 2005 @ 5:11pm

    Re: it's a salary issue

    I couldn't agree more with this. I've been interviewing / hiring developers in the Bay Area and end up either offshoring the project altogether or hiring H1B candidates because the people out of work right now are pretty unskilled. Our salaries are competitive but not the 125k these "15 yrs programming experience" guys think they're worth here in the Valley. They have most certainly priced themselves out of the market.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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