Why are we encouraging kids to pursue STEM careers when they might well be replaced by underpaid immigrants on H-1B visas?
mjh said:
Senator Seeks Inquiry Into Visa Program Used at Disney
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/politics/senator-bill-nelson-seeks-inquiry-into-disney-world-immigrant-hiring.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Glad to hear that someone is 'investigating' but let's not fool ourselves. These companies spend a lot of money lobbying the politicians in Washington. The employees that were layed off, don't have anyone lobbying for them.
dg64 said:
The Disney thing sounds illegal. However, in the future there will be greater need for workers proficient in advanced computer systems as more and more services and products use more sophisticated software. But not enough Americans are entering fields that would supply this need and the shortage of workers in these areas is real.
But often this knowledge is developed via specialized training provided by the corporations that need these unique skills. When these jobs are given to H1B visa holders, the knowledge is give to them, further putting American employees at a disadvantage. And if those who graduate from Technical schools holding these degrees have to settle for a lower paying job than they deserve because they are competing with H1B visa holders who are getting paid significantly less, why would more kids enter the field? It is a catch 22.
pmartinezv said:
dg64 said:But often this knowledge is developed via specialized training provided by the corporations that need these unique skills. When these jobs are given to H1B visa holders, the knowledge is give to them, further putting American employees at a disadvantage. And if those who graduate from Technical schools holding these degrees have to settle for a lower paying job than they deserve because they are competing with H1B visa holders who are getting paid significantly less, why would more kids enter the field? It is a catch 22.
The Disney thing sounds illegal. However, in the future there will be greater need for workers proficient in advanced computer systems as more and more services and products use more sophisticated software. But not enough Americans are entering fields that would supply this need and the shortage of workers in these areas is real.
Lower wages is a real issue. With globalization at work, if the H1B workers were not to come here, I'm pretty sure that these jobs would get farmed elsewhere to lower the bottom line.
I'd be curious as to some follow up on the story. Yes, those tech workers at Disney were laid off -- how quickly do they find new work? Do they find it at the same compensation, about equal, or at a greater level? I'd base my level of concern on the answer to those two questions.
I work in the tech industry (I'm a programmer), and I don't feel especially threatened by H1B workers. Some of my colleagues are here on visas, some are citizens, some moved here on visas and are on their way to becoming permanent residents or maybe even eventually citizens (at which point the whole "immigrants taking jobs from citizens" would be moot, no?)
I wouldn't stop encouraging people to pursue STEM careers. It's a field where you have a good shot at being decently paid and in which there's interesting work to be found. Good pay and good work isn't guaranteed, any more than in any other field, but I feel that your odds are much better working in tech than many other industries.
What _is_ true I think is that the job market is much more volatile than it used to be. As a tech worker, you won't be immune to that (or to the startup you work at not succeeding, or to your company being bought out by a larger company, etc). That volatility is true for the whole workforce, though. In tech, though I feel you're more likely to ride out that volatility more successfully than in other industries.
Back to Disney, I'm sure they've insulated themselves.
They're just outsourcing their IT to a consulting firm. They had no idea (NO IDEA!!!) that all the employees of that off-shore-based consultancy were either going to work off-shore or be brought into the US on temporary visas.
/p>
I have a friend who is a research scientist at Morristown Hosp. Same problem. Lots o' visas given in that field. And not for the stars, but for an average scientist .
there would be no shortage of skilled Americans if corporations hired skilled Americans.
What corporations in systems are doing now and have been doing for years, is opening datacenters and programming centers in foreign countries where programmers can be paid 25% or less for what they pay American programmers.
All the knowledge base is going overseas and when the existing programming staff retires out or moves on that knowledge is lost.
It will only change if skilled and educated workers are screwed out of jobs. And they stop thumbing their noses at unions.
krugle1 said:
I have a friend who is a research scientist at Morristown Hosp. Same problem. Lots o' visas given in that field. And not for the stars, but for an average scientist .
Most research scientists in the US of foreign origin have done their graduate work in US universities. While they may get visas to change from student status to H1B to permanent resident to citizen, it's not the same as the H1Bs that are given to workers who were hired in another country to expressly work for a particular company. I don't see anything wrong with giving visas to qualified research scientists. A large proportion of research scientists in the US are of foreign origin.
By the way, how do you differentiate between the "stars" and "average" scientists? Ones who attract more money, do "better" work, make contributions to society, talk an awesome game?
krugle1 said:
It will only change if skilled and educated workers are screwed out of jobs. And they stop thumbing their noses at unions.
Skilled and educated workers are already getting screwed out of jobs. I have been in IT/Finance for 15+ years. I have seen some very good programmers and IT people get laid off and having to become consultants at a fraction of what they were getting paid. I have seen first hand entire groups/departments at major corporations be replaced by a group of individuals overseas who do not have a clue. The lost of knowledge is mind boggling. It may be a cost savings for the company, but it is a huge disservice to their clients.
Why is it always assumed that people overseas have no clue? Is knowledge an American domain?
And let me give you first an account of an event I experienced. A gentleman was hired by a firm I do business with. This person was supposed to be an IT person. The firm is a big deal firm, a large firm. This person would call me to ask me the dumbest questions for someone in his field. I do mean dumb. As in I can't believe this guy has a job in IT. Another individual who worked at that firm, who I was friendly with, mentioned that this guy was recruited via a overseas "consultant" firm using the H1B program. This firm would literally train their recruits to do a great "interview" and get the job in question without any real knowledge of the business. They were to learn to job on the field once they were hired, often misleading the firm/group that hired them. The group caught up with what was going on but at that point "contracts" were signed and they had to deal with the situation the best they could. I am sure this gentleman was not a single occurrence.
dg64 said:
Why is it always assumed that people overseas have no clue? Is knowledge an American domain?
There is plenty of knowledge all over the world. However we are explicitly discussing the loss of jobs to foreigners on a program that was designed to bring in skills that could not be located in the US, not that could be easily and more cheaply replaced.
pmartinezv said:
dg64 said:There is plenty of knowledge all over the world. However we are explicitly discussing the loss of jobs to foreigners on a program that was designed to bring in skills that could not be located in the US, not that could be easily and more cheaply replaced.
Why is it always assumed that people overseas have no clue? Is knowledge an American domain?
And the answer to my first question?
I'd also point out that job volatility is mainly a problem because of our shoddy welfare safety net. In an ideal, entrepreneurial world, companies would be experimenting with outsourcing and insourcing as they are doing now (and finding out, as many do, that the loss of in-house knowledge ends up costing more than the little they saved on compensation) while the laid-off would have generous resources while unemployed to find work at a wiser company or even launch their own companies.
In the world we actually live in, sadly, we have a masochistic culture that sees any kind of community support as "weakness" and believes taxes to be the worst thing that could happen to anyone.
pmartinezv said:
And let me give you first an account of an event I experienced. A gentleman was hired by a firm I do business with. This person was supposed to be an IT person. The firm is a big deal firm, a large firm. This person would call me to ask me the dumbest questions for someone in his field. I do mean dumb. As in I can't believe this guy has a job in IT. Another individual who worked at that firm, who I was friendly with, mentioned that this guy was recruited via a overseas "consultant" firm using the H1B program. This firm would literally train their recruits to do a great "interview" and get the job in question without any real knowledge of the business. They were to learn to job on the field once they were hired, often misleading the firm/group that hired them. The group caught up with what was going on but at that point "contracts" were signed and they had to deal with the situation the best they could. I am sure this gentleman was not a single occurrence.
I am sure your anecdotal experience is enough for you to generalize. I'm sure also there are foreigners who lack the training they claim they have as there are Americans. Yet, I would not generalize based on my experience of clueless Americans that all Americans are clueless.
PVW said:
I'd also point out that job volatility is mainly a problem because of our shoddy welfare safety net. In an ideal, entrepreneurial world, companies would be experimenting with outsourcing and insourcing as they are doing now (and finding out, as many do, that the loss of in-house knowledge ends up costing more than the little they saved on compensation) while the laid-off would have generous resources while unemployed to find work at a wiser company or even launch their own companies.
In the world we actually live in, sadly, we have a masochistic culture that sees any kind of community support as "weakness" and believes taxes to be the worst thing that could happen to anyone.
+1
dg64 said:
pmartinezv said:And the answer to my first question?
dg64 said:There is plenty of knowledge all over the world. However we are explicitly discussing the loss of jobs to foreigners on a program that was designed to bring in skills that could not be located in the US, not that could be easily and more cheaply replaced.
Why is it always assumed that people overseas have no clue? Is knowledge an American domain?
Not sure what you mean about your first question. The example I was referring to, if you need more details, was the closing of a help desk in the US, where employees at this firm had been working in some cases for 20+ years, who had deep knowledge of their markets (Finance in this case) as well as their products and services, to be replaced by a call center in Bangalore where the employees provided responses to inquiries from a 'catalog' of answers that were documented by the employees that were let go. I am not saying that people overseas do not have knowledge. I work in a global company and I have plenty of colleagues all over the world that are very knowledgable. I am referring to the replacement of a knowledgeable work force with a cheap substitute in another country with limited or no knowledge of the product they support. Knowledge typically comes with experience. When you replace experience with a cheap substitute you typically lose the knowledge.
dg64 said:
Why is it always assumed that people overseas have no clue? Is knowledge an American domain?
There are lots of problems with outsourced IT jobs, including instability of groups and lack of understanding. First, since they pay a low wage, the workers leave anytime they can get a few more bucks elsewhere. This alone can derail a project when the key person disappears. The replacements need time to get up to speed. Second, they may lack the specific skills needed to do the job (or lie and try to fake it) and have poor customer interface (especially if they work when the customers are sleeping). Also, management of such jobs is complicated and changes to production may not get applied correctly. And don't even get me started on testing.
nan said:
dg64 said:
Why is it always assumed that people overseas have no clue? Is knowledge an American domain?
There are lots of problems with outsourced IT jobs, including instability of groups and lack of understanding. First, since they pay a low wage, the workers leave anytime they can get a few more bucks elsewhere. This alone can derail a project when the key person disappears. The replacements need time to get up to speed. Second, they may lack the specific skills needed to do the job (or lie and try to fake it) and have poor customer interface (especially if they work when the customers are sleeping). Also, management of such jobs is complicated and changes to production may not get applied correctly. And don't even get me started on testing.
Indeed.
pmartinezv said:
dg64 said:Not sure what you mean about your first question. The example I was referring to, if you need more details, was the closing of a help desk in the US, where employees at this firm had been working in some cases for 20+ years, who had deep knowledge of their markets (Finance in this case) as well as their products and services, to be replaced by a call center in Bangalore where the employees provided responses to inquiries from a 'catalog' of answers that were documented by the employees that were let go. I am not saying that people overseas do not have knowledge. I work in a global company and I have plenty of colleagues all over the world that are very knowledgable. I am referring to the replacement of a knowledgeable work force with a cheap substitute in another country with limited or no knowledge of the product they support. Knowledge typically comes with experience. When you replace experience with a cheap substitute you typically lose the knowledge.
pmartinezv said:And the answer to my first question?
dg64 said:There is plenty of knowledge all over the world. However we are explicitly discussing the loss of jobs to foreigners on a program that was designed to bring in skills that could not be located in the US, not that could be easily and more cheaply replaced.
Why is it always assumed that people overseas have no clue? Is knowledge an American domain?
Hypothetically, if an experienced employee were fired or left their job, would their replacement (American) need training to gain the knowledge required to support the product? Loss of this kind of knowledge happens and it does take some time to rebuild it. But I don't think this process is limited to foreigners, or is it? I was referring to your post regarding "employees from overseas who don't have a clue."
I sense an underlying hostility towards "those foreign H1B workers", when it is the corporations who are making the bottom line decisions. The H1B workers are just trying to feed their families in the same way as most workers around the world.
nan said:
dg64 said:
Why is it always assumed that people overseas have no clue? Is knowledge an American domain?
There are lots of problems with outsourced IT jobs, including instability of groups and lack of understanding. First, since they pay a low wage, the workers leave anytime they can get a few more bucks elsewhere. This alone can derail a project when the key person disappears. The replacements need time to get up to speed. Second, they may lack the specific skills needed to do the job (or lie and try to fake it) and have poor customer interface (especially if they work when the customers are sleeping). Also, management of such jobs is complicated and changes to production may not get applied correctly. And don't even get me started on testing.
If you are still talking about H1B workers, their visa is tied to the company they work for and they cannot leave and join another company without going through a new visa process which can take months.
Replacements needing time to get up to speed is hopefully not limited to foreigners. Most outsourced workers who service a market beyond their time zone, change their daily schedule to match that time zone. This has changed the culture in many parts of the world.
dg64 said:
If you are still talking about H1B workers, their visa is tied to the company they work for and they cannot leave and join another company without going through a new visa process which can take months.
Yes, but many times that employer sponsoring the visa is a contracting/staffing firm and they move from client (e.g. Disney) to client.
dg64 said:
pmartinezv said:Hypothetically, if an experienced employee were fired or left their job, would their replacement (American) need training to gain the knowledge required to support the product? Loss of this kind of knowledge happens and it does take some time to rebuild it. But I don't think this process is limited to foreigners, or is it? I was referring to your post regarding "employees from overseas who don't have a clue."
dg64 said:Not sure what you mean about your first question. The example I was referring to, if you need more details, was the closing of a help desk in the US, where employees at this firm had been working in some cases for 20+ years, who had deep knowledge of their markets (Finance in this case) as well as their products and services, to be replaced by a call center in Bangalore where the employees provided responses to inquiries from a 'catalog' of answers that were documented by the employees that were let go. I am not saying that people overseas do not have knowledge. I work in a global company and I have plenty of colleagues all over the world that are very knowledgable. I am referring to the replacement of a knowledgeable work force with a cheap substitute in another country with limited or no knowledge of the product they support. Knowledge typically comes with experience. When you replace experience with a cheap substitute you typically lose the knowledge.
pmartinezv said:And the answer to my first question?
dg64 said:There is plenty of knowledge all over the world. However we are explicitly discussing the loss of jobs to foreigners on a program that was designed to bring in skills that could not be located in the US, not that could be easily and more cheaply replaced.
Why is it always assumed that people overseas have no clue? Is knowledge an American domain?
I sense an underlying hostility towards "those foreign H1B workers", when it is the corporations who are making the bottom line decisions. The H1B workers are just trying to feed their families in the same way as most workers around the world.
No hostility per se. As I mentioned I do have friends, really good friends, who initially came to the US on a H1B. Do I think they had justification to get the H1B? No. But they did and indeed good for them. And yes, the fault is of the companies who are trying to save a buck, definitely. And yes there is training required, but you typically hire someone with actual knowledge of the field and the training is tailored to the systems and procedures that are unique at the firm, unless you are just trying to bring in a new college graduate. The learning curve is not as steep when you hire someone with market knowledge vs someone who has to learn everything.
When I referred to "employees from overseas who don't have a clue" I am was not saying they are not knowledgeable for are dumb, but they have in my experience, limited knowledge of my business and the products/services I deal with and it becomes an ordeal to get things done or addressed.
We have many highly skilled and knowledgable people working for us overseas. There are many issues with working with these folks in a team including the language barriers and the time differences, experience levels of the employees and the differing managements in both locations who many times will have cross purposes.
English is not a universal language and adding in technical jargon to business jargon leaves a lot of room for miscommunications, the different cultural differences of how people think, what they think their job entails literally at the surface instead of deeper understandings can cause many projects to go off the rails very quickly.
When the major turnover happens where the baby boomers who began the computer generation are no longer majority working in the USA there will be a vacuum of knowledge created that will slow down and in many cases be the cause of systemic failures in many of these short sighted corporations - but dont worry those CEO's that spearheaded the off-shoring of American jobs will be long retired, resting themselves on their 7 figure severances.
BG9 said:
krugle1 said:I've hear that. Could explain the lack of jobs for current law school graduates.
I've heard that certain legal work is being sent overseas. Contract review and work of that nature.
Actually, and somewhat ironically, the collapse of the legal market put a damper on legal outsourcing, which has never gained traction like IT and some other fields. It does exist, but it's harder to execute than other outsourcing areas since it requires more intense supervision.
What has happened is the "bar-belling" of the legal jobs, where you either are very well paid, at the large Wall Street firms or paid less than what you would have made just getting a job out of college. Since there are so many qualified candidates and they are willing to be hired for low rates, the financial reason to outsource legal work is simply less compelling than in other fields.
Looks like Disney is planning to rehire some of the tech workers it recently laid off. Hopefully, this story will continue to gain traction in the media and in Washington.
http://nyti.ms/1SmkrkN
The Disney thing sounds illegal. However, in the future there will be greater need for workers proficient in advanced computer systems as more and more services and products use more sophisticated software. But not enough Americans are entering fields that would supply this need and the shortage of workers in these areas is real.