As I have said in the past, these visas are used by big tech companies to keep down the cost of programmers. There is no shortage of tech people in this country, only a shortage of people who will work for the low wage, no benefits offers that the big tech companies want to pay to maximize profits.
Natasha of Pacific Views has a post on the H-1B visa scam, and a video that shows one of the ways the companies do it.
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Outsourcing is bad enough. H-1B abuse is worse. I know of only one instance in which I explicitly lost some work due to outsourcing (not H-1B, just old-fashioned offshoring), and I must admit I grinned when the work later came back to me for good reason. But I’m not grinning much these days, and what we don’t know most certainly is hurting us. Natasha’s post told me a few things I didn’t already know, and I already knew enough to be alarmed.
I knew a lot of guys who went on to become senior programmers in corporations from working out in SoCal, and the story was the same for most of them – they burned themselves out when they started and after things settled down and profits and work was more reasonable, they got laid off, and then their jobs were given to H-1Bs.
The companies lied about the job specs, and replaced senior programmers with guys willing to work the 12-18 hour/day, 6 day/week schedules, and the products sucked.
It was common knowledge it was going on, but no one listens to unemployed programmers, too old to start again and too young to retire.
computers aren’t the only industry where this happened.
Unemployed programmers make great bloggers, though.
“Unemployed programmers make great bloggers, though.” – whig
Indeed. Where do I send my invoice? What? Free? Oh. No one told me that…
I’m thinking of resuming teaching music, probably private lessons, maybe adjunct at a small local university where I taught about 25 years ago. Music teaching is about the only other legitimate occupation I’ve got. That’s at least as much work as contract programming, though, and the money isn’t exactly good or steady. But it’s awfully hard to offshore music teaching, and I doubt the universities would benefit by H-1B abuse.
“Legitimate…” say, maybe I could join the GOP and become a contractor… what kind of contractor? Oh, one who “does stuff” for the government and charges double for it… the “doing stuff” part appears to be optional, and double may be a low estimate. This is Texas, after all. I used to do (legitimate) state contracts, delivering actual working code, and government work is a PITA, but I may have to rethink my options in light of current reality.
hipparchia, you are right. I’m curious, though, exactly what other industries you had in mind when you wrote that.
All I can say is Oh My GOD! I have no Idea. I’m a mental health professional who believed NPR that there is a shortage of engineers and such (even though I started up as an engineer and had plenty of classmates (some who became teachers, other supermarket workers until they went for Master’s, etc. and that was in the very early 90’s).
Bottom line, we have a bunch of Vanderbilt-, Rockefeller-, etc. – wannabes. The age of Newport Mansions is upon us and maybe we’ll avoid the same perils of developing countries (the pyramid effect, were most people are poor or seriously struggling).
Every technology business is doing exactly the same thing, just look at the trends for H-1B visas and then look at the degrees granted in the US. There is no shortage of educated Americans qualified for the jobs, just a willingness to pay them what they are worth.
Why is there a nursing shortage, because they don’t pay nurses squat and they want them to work absurd hours like they were WalMart workers. The same goes for lab techs.
All of the next generation jobs are being “out-sourced” via H-1Bs, which is just migrant labor with a fancier label. Companies own H-1Bs for 7 years and can throw them away whenever they feel like it.
Oh, Whig, nice to see this is getting spread around by multiple sources. Two hundred years after Britain started to get serious about slavery, and the practice keeps morphing into something with a different name.