Elvis1: Did I hold up Canada as a shining example? The point is, the U.S. used to believe in, “Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.” America was the land of opportunity, and all were invited as long as they were willing to work hard.
Now, the prevailing attitude is, “We got ours, now lock up the gates and keep the unwashed masses out!”
At this point, I think it’s too early to tell.
No offense, but you seem to be thinking in an “all-or-nothing” mode. Some of the jobs may be “outsourced” – perhaps even many of them – but not all of them would be. Additionally, it would be difficult to manage these foreign workers if the USA didn’t have a good supply of technical people themselves.
BTW, the situation described isn’t quite the same as outsourcing – although that option may become popular as well. Outsourcing means that another company has been contracted to do part of the work. The situation described involved HIRING the foreign nationals, but keeping them in their own countries. This would typically involve setting up some sort of remote facility – either that, or one heck of a telecommute.
I know you were addressing Kyuzo, but here’s my viewpoint.
Personally, I’m not concerned. Why? Interestingly enough, for the very same reasons that you cited. (High five, man!) As you hinted, some individuals may find themselves disenfranchised, but I think the overall benefits would be substantial.
Additionally, I doubt that this foreign “outsourcing” (to use the term loosely) would exist to any adverse extent. After all, there’s also an increasing trend toward concurrent engineering, “zero warehousing” and related philosophies such as flexible, agile and just-in-time manufacturing. This would tend to keep many jobs local, whenever possible.
In an earlier post, I did mention that some other U.S. workers are worried. They don’t speak for me, though. With all due respect to them, I think their concerns are misplaced.
I think if any individuals find themselves disenfranchised, then that answers the OP, because that will clearly work to the detriment of U.S. workers seeking jobs.
I think that computer programming is quite a different type of work from bricklaying or railroad building, and I don’t think we will be better off overall if U.S. programmers are replaced or have to compete with foreign programmers.
By keeping themselves up to date, do you mean their skills? How should a worker keep himself up to date? Can you offer any examples where the fall back was temporary rather than permanent?
Most jobs I see look for work experience in certain skills – classwork or self teaching will not meet requirements. Clearly, if I can’t find a job working with Java (for example), then I won’t have the qualifications “needed” for a job working with Java, even if I have taken classes in Java. Therefore, another job that won’t be filled and “requires” an H1-B.
No, it simply means that it works to the detriment of SOME U.S. workers. The overall benefits can still exceed their detriment.
In other words, it’s ridiculous to dismiss techie immigration simply because some people might be disenfranchised. (Also, please note that such disenfranchisement doesn’t have to be permanent.)
Perhaps, but with all due respect, I haven’t seen any convincing evidence to that effect. The only evidence I’ve seen is based on extremely sketchy data. Consider the following, for example:
Note how sketchy, isolated cases are used to refute the notion of a general labor shortage. Of course, there will always be some companies where a foreigner is selected over a U.S. worker; however, this does not suggest that U.S. worker can not find a comparable job. Similarly, there will always be unemployed U.S. programmers; however, it would be reckless to conclude that this is due to foreigners, rather than a lack of skill, drive or aptitude.
The more I see how such sketchy “evidence” is used to oppose immigration, the more I’m convinced that we need to recruit these foreigners!
Boy, if ya gotta ask…
If the scientist, engineer or programmer in question can’t figure that out, then I would have to seriously question his core competency.
I was about to reply to Kyuzo, but it looks like JTC covered everything. Nicely done.
Another thing…
When immigration critics ask questions like, “How can fresh foreign graduate have skills that a fresh American graduate wouldn’t?” or “How can Americans keep their skills up to date and avoid being displaced?” you know that something is seriously wrong. The answers should be self-evident – especially to a hard-working, competent and self-motivated professional.
I have always found it difficult as a programmer (though obviously not impossible, since I’ve been successful so far, and have been at it for twenty years) to maneuver around the Catch-22 that’s always thrown at us: you need experience in some language, but you can’t get experience in that language unless you’ve worked in that language already. Or in that hardware. Or in that industry. Or operating system. Or whatever.
And yes, H-1B’s are exploited in this situation. It would be naive to think otherwise. Any profit-making enterprise is going to take full advantage of whatever loophole it gets offered for cutting costs. They would have to be stupid not to.
The root of the problem is the Catch-22 above, and for the life of me I’ve never been able to figure out how terribly different an if/then/else statement can be from one language to another. As for object-orientation, this is a perfectly natural outgrowth of the earlier ability to call a function and get a return while using variables inside that function that are local to that function. Polymorphism is a nice extension to this ability, as is inheritance, but they’re extensions, and easily grasped by those of us who’ve programmed in non-OO languages earlier in our careers. If managers would figure out that there is a wealth of experience right under their noses, they’d revise those silly classifieds with all those calls for highly specific skill sets, and realize that programmers who could figure out assembly language aren’t going to do much more than sneeze at OO.
One obvious solution is to take a part-time class in some subject – or better yet, to pursue some graduate studies. That way, you can gain the necessary off-job experience.
Another option is to study the technology on your own. Years ago, I taught myself C++ and object-orientation, which opened up several job opportunities for me. More recently, I learned the Unified Modelling Language (UML) on my own, and landed another job as a result. A competent programmer can always learn these things, as Matloff himself admitted. In fact, companies love to recruit programmers and engineers with that kind of self-motivation.
Besides, companies are often willing to relax their requirements, especially when the applicant demonstrates general competence and drive. Even if the company doesn’t, that only limits your opporunities at that company. Other opportunities about, especially for programmers who are fluent in general-purpose languages such as C, C++ and Java.
Is it really exploitation to hire the most qualified programmers – the ones which DO have the necessary skills, regardless of citizenship? I don’t think so, and I can’t see how this can be lamented as some grave injustice.
As I said, there are numerous ways to break the cycle. I should know. I’ve done it myself. Any competent programmer can do the same.
No offense, but that’s not even remotely true… which demonstrates my claim that many programmers really don’t have this skill yet.
Object orientation extends far beyond the mere “ability to call a function” (etc). It involves the proper DESIGN of these functions and their underlying variables. It also requires the ability to design a sensible and extensible class heirarchy – one which also obeys such tenets as the One Responsibility Principle, the Liskov Substitution Principle, polymorphism, information hiding, data encapsulation and so forth. It also requires understanding the trade-offs between readability, encapsulation and performance, or inheritance and aggregation – to name just a few.
See? This is why managers complain about a dearth of programmers with fluency in object-oriented design. Many programmers think they know what it is, but truly don’t.
Polymorphism isn’t just an extension of object oriented programming. Rather, it is an essential component thereof. Without polymorphism, there is no object oriented design. You may be using objects, but you’re not using object orientation.
I’ll agree that non-OO programmers should be able to learn polymorphism, inheritance and OO; however, many haven’t learned it yet. That’s one reason why managers often complain about the lack of manpower in today’s technical pool.
Okay, first of all, that is only relevant when talking about OOP skills. Often, the lack of manpower is due to a lack of other skills as well (e.g. documentation ability, facility in a particular language, etc).
Second, we’ve already seen how object orientation is NOT as simple as many programmers think it is. I’m always astonished at the number of programmers who think that OOP is nothing more than using public functions and private data. It isn’t; not even close.
Finally, why should companies be obligated to settle for second best? Obviously, this isn’t in their best interest. Why should we force them to settle for programmers with inadequate skills – programmers who might gain the proper expertise, but might not? Modern development cycles are becoming increasingly short, and the loss of a few months can be fatal.
Sure, we can use draconian methods to provide job security for the less qualified American engineers – but should we? The companies’ obligation is to produce the best product that they can. The engineer’s obligation is to keep himself competitive. If we dilute our standards of excellence, then we can keep these people employed in the short term. In the long term, both industry and the individual will be hurt.
First of all, I did all of those things you did to keep myself current. And I was also one of those who showed enough drive that the company didn’t care that my skills were a tad obsolete. They gave me, and are still giving me the time, to get totally proficient in the languages and design principles in practice today.
Which only proves my point. The company isn’t hurting itself by giving a little for me; in return, they get an employee with total familiarity with their business and with how they go about operating it day to day. If a person says to me “floating side of a swap” or “LIBOR rate” or “Actual/actual interest basis” or “Reserve for Interest Expense” or whatever, I don’t bat an eye. I’m not proficient enough in the business to be a trader or an accountant or in back-office operations, but at least I can understand what they’re talking about and why they might need something to look a certain way or be calculated in a certain way. Whereas some fresh out of school kid, whether H1-B or no, wouldn’t know an interest accrual from the blind side of a barn. And therefore wouldn’t know where to begin looking when someone runs to him complaining that his report is calculating on a 366 day basis when he wants it to calculate on a 365 day basis.
There are managers, far too many of them, who believe that cheap is better than good. And who justify it by saying they need someone who’s up on the latest technology, and start spouting whatever the fad-of-the-day is. It’s horsefeathers. Flapdoodle. Poppycock. Take your pick.
Sometimes that can be the case. It depends on the employee, and on the situation.
Also, bear in mind that you’re an existing employee, someone who has presumably proven himself. Companies often don’t have the same luxury when it comes to new hires.
Your situation simply shows that SOMETIMES it is best to train an U.S. citizen or an existing employee. However, sometimes that’s not the best solution. None of the immigration advocates are saying you should always select a foreigner over a citizen. It depends on the situation – including the applicant’s attitudes and the extent to which you know that person.
Granted. However, that’s a rather flimsy reason to dismiss immigration altogether. We should certainly combat abuse of the system, but that doesn’t mean we should oppose the system altogether.
If an H-1B worker is being paid half of what his American counterparts get, then that’s a danged good example of abuse. However, the vast majority of foreign technical workers (H-1B or otherwise) are nothing like that! In addition, many of them bring valued expertise, know-how and a solid work ethic.
Also, let’s not be so careful to dismiss the companies which do hire cheaper labor. Sometimes cheaper IS better. It depends on the job requirements, and on the company’s situation. When a company hires a cheaper recruit – foreigner or otherwise – it’s not always because they’re sacrificing quality for cost. Sometimes, a less expensive employee will suffice, and sometimes, a struggling company will have no choice.
Allow me to make something clear. I had to go over my earlier posts to make sure I hadn’t said something I didn’t mean to say, so let me get this out, and out front: I have nothing at all against immigration.
My beef is strictly with the abuse of the H1-B program, and other immigration restrictions, including the long waiting period for getting a green card. These rules are not meant to facilitate immigration, IMO, but to restrict it. As a result of these restrictions, companies can get away with hiring a foreigner for less than they would otherwise. Which leads to them using the laws to get their hands on people from abroad for less, when, without the restrictions in place, they’d have to pay them a true market rate, not the “prevailing wage”, whatever that is.
Which gets us back to our previous discussion. A concrete example: I spent today putting in code to calculate an actual/actual interest basis into an app simply because the previous crew, made up I have no doubt, of people who didn’t really understand the desires of the users, took a perfectly good canned app with an API, and layered on top of it middleware, two separate distinct totally unneeded databases, and a bunch of code to produce reports that was and is less powerful than the reports in the canned app that the company bought. By contrast, the department I normally work for ( I was dragooned into doing this stuff ) works with the API of the canned app and encounters no problems whatsoever producing reports with the interest properly calculated (when we find the need to produce custom reports at all).
When I asked why anyone would burden the app with all this unnecessary code, the answer I got was that the previous crew was intent on padding their resumes. They were young, inexperienced and ambitious. ( My department, by contrast, has six people, three of us older and experienced, three younger but proficient in the new technologies. We make for a good balance. )
They’re gone now. This code will soon be given a proper burial, thank God. In the meantime, the company paid for a bunch of development it didn’t need, that didn’t accomplish what they wanted, and facilitated the careers of a bunch of self-interested people who I’m sure sit around at lunch talking about their less technically proficient peers with disdain. I’ve heard those conversations, and I listen to them with wonderment. By the way, this is the third time I’ve seen this kind of development gone amok, and all three times it was a very expensive mistake.
But they’ll make good money 'cause they say all the right things, and know all the right things. Technical know-how means squat without the proper regard for the needs of the business employing the technology.
Or, you get what you pay for.
The long waiting period for a green card is mainly due not to any restrictions, but to a lack of INS resources. There was a long period (since I’m not in the field anymore, I’m not sure if it’s over yet) of time in which the California and Nebraska Service Centers simply stopped processing I-485 (green card) applications because they had too many other things to deal with. In contrast, when the Texas Service Center decided to prioritise I-485s some of my firm’s clients had their green cards approved within a few months after filing. Maybe if there wasn’t such a strong anti-immigration sentiment in the US, the agency could get more money to reduce these waiting periods.
The other reason for the long delay was the per country quota but I understand (correct me if I’m wrong) that the new law addressed that problem as well.
The new H1-B law passed Congress 96-1. Clearly, the high tech industry has power and support in Congress.
If the high tech industry sponsoring the H1-Bs really wanted to keep these workers here permanently, why aren’t they pressuring Congress to correct the green card problem?
Maybe they aren’t doing anything because the restriction on getting green cards allows companies to do what pantom suggests it does:
Of course not! No one claimed they were.
I do claim they are paid less than their counterparts. Even the example you gave where your friend started out at $48,000 provides evidence for this. Why did he work for less than his worth? (You say it was partly because he was a foreigner…doesn’t that help prove my point?)
You love to claim that most H1-Bs are fresh out of school, and that is why they make less. I simply don’t buy your assertion that universities in the United States are not turning out enough graduates or that the graduates are of such inferior quality that H-1Bs are needed.
If most H-1Bs are fresh out of school, they are competing with graduates fresh out of school in the United States.
A friend of mine graduated recently with a degree in computer science, in the most up to date technology, from a respected university. He sent out 20 resumes to companies that offered entry level positions. (In speaking about this, he was very clear he applied only for positions that specified entry level.) He received 2 interviews. Where is the shortage?
This is in the metro Detroit area. Not Silicon Valley, but not backwoods Appalaicha either.
You might want to read Clintons remarks after signing the law:
(This was taken from Immigrants Support Network. Click “President Clinton signs S. 2045,” then “Read Statement by President.”)
The new law still allows for rampant abuse of H1-Bs. Of course Clinton did direct the terribly backlogged and understaffed INS to monitor the situation - without increasing its funding or staffing. Hmmm. Maybe the new law doesn’t really change anything, and H-1Bs will continue to be abused.
FTR, Matloff also regularly updates his paper. In fact, it was last updated 12-27-00.
If they didn’t want to keep them here permanently, why would they sponsor them for green cards at all?
Actually, that claim WAS made, in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=54164
You weren’t the one who said it – and I never claimed you were – but it is the sort of ridiculous statistic which is often tossed about by immigration critics.
He accepted it because he knew he could command a dramatic salary increase shortly thereafter. As for his being a foreigner, that only factored in because the company had to pay THOUSANDS of dollars in fees for him. In other words,
he was (temporarily) being paid less, but the company’s expenses remained the same.
You are always welcome to stick your head in the sand. We’ve already seen that the “statistics” which you’ve provided have been dubious and wracked with anomalies.
They are competing with a VARIETY of job applicants. Not all job applicants are fresh out of school.
See? This is a PERFECT example of abusing the facts – throwing around anecdotes and pretending they’re “statistics.” There could be any number of reasons why your friend only received two interviews. Perhaps he’s targeting the wrong companies, or perhaps his resume doesn’t look professional. Perhaps he’s setting his sights too high for now.
The points is that the struggles of any given individual don’t disprove the existence of a shortage.
Clinton’s remarks simply mean that there are pros and cons, and that the legislation may require further work. No system is perfect, after all.
Immigration critics like to jump on individual cases of abuse or employment struggle, and pretend that this constitutes a case against immigration in general. They don’t. In any system, there can always be abuse, and there may always be individuals who don’t fare well. That doesn’t mean that the system should be thrown out altogether.
Can abuse exist under the current H-1B system? Certainly! Is there room for improvement? Doubltessly so. Does this mean that immigration is not necessary, or should be stifled? HARDLY! Proving the existence of abuse does not automatically disprove the need for immigration. This is simply a matter of common sense.
Excellent point. One could also argue that their need for workers is immediate and so they’re concentrating their efforts on amending the H-1B laws. The H-1B applications are quicker and easier to process than green card applications, and they are limited primarily by quotas.
Kyuzo’s point is yet another example of hasty and unwarranted conclusions derived from scant information.
Perhaps. However, please remember that the OP was about the merits and demerits of immigration itself – not abuse. In other words, that was the topic at hand.
In the absence of any direct statement such as “I’m only objecting to the abuse, not to immigration itself,” participants would naturally assume that you’re addressing the original topic of the thread.