I’m afraid the EDA/Sun reference is lost on me. EDA - Electronic Design Automation. Sun certainly uses these products...but I don’t see the equivalence?
As for the bit about an Indian displacing an American. If you refer to jobs that have gone overseas. Sure - I won’t contest that occurs. If you are talking about the Indians who come here to work legally via one mechanism or another I don’t agree.
The problem with most of these arguments is that High Tech is mostly a meritocracy. People are paid what their talent demands.. Indian engineers working in the US are paid prevailing US wages.
Now if I’m an employer and I have two equally qualified applicants fresh out of school - one Indian and one a native born US citizen I’d pick the US citizen because in the long run he costs me less to employee. I don’t have to go through the green card process with him!
Further - most of these kids are coming here and taking post graduate degrees which were not filled by US applicants! The US doesn’t graduate that many native born engineers! With off-shoring becoming much more practical, the high tech jobs are disappearing as well. the lure of high paying jobs are going away, with less people choosing to go into engineer. (They are likely to become lawyers and run for congress instead..)
I hate to break this to you all, but this isn’t really caused by Government policy, but business making economic choices and the advent of cheap and efficient communications!
So - I don’t buy your bit about 1 for 2 displacement. I haven’t seen that in my career, and I’ve been in Silicon Valley as a working engineer for 25+ years now.
Sun was co-founded by an Indian if I recall. You know, back when everyone agrees the Indians *were* "the cream of the crop". And from what I have heard, they hired very many folks from India.
IF the hype about Indians walking on water were true, Sun would've done better, much better.
As for the bit about an Indian displacing an American. If you refer to jobs that have gone overseas. Sure - I won’t contest that occurs. If you are talking about the Indians who come here to work legally via one mechanism or another I don’t agree.
Ever hear of the company mockingly called "Hewlitt-Patel?" Or the CEO who claimed "No *American* has a right to a job"?
Or Brian Valentine of Microsoft declaiming "Think India! Two for the price of one!"
The problem with most of these arguments is that High Tech is mostly a meritocracy. People are paid what their talent demands.. Indian engineers working in the US are paid prevailing US wages.
Not at body shops; not as contractors/subcontractors; and not when higher ups from India practice "racial nepotism" or when C-level US execs clear out the US workers to hire preferentially from overseas.
I've seen it with my own eyes in company after company. Companies with 10's of billions in annual revenue. Startups. And midsize. I've seen US PhD's forced to train their replacements -- who then screwed the pooch, and blamed the US worker. I've also seen US PhD's forced to clean up the work of overseas workers, while the overseas worker "officially" get the credit.
Further - most of these kids are coming here and taking post graduate degrees which were not filled by US applicants! The US doesn’t graduate that many native born engineers! With off-shoring becoming much more practical, the high tech jobs are disappearing as well. the lure of high paying jobs are going away, with less people choosing to go into engineer.
Right, but only AFTER 10 years or more of throwing away qualified Americans, did the younger Americans figure out it wasn't worth it to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt only to be cast away as disposable in pursuit of managment's latest masturbatory fantasy. And the of course the schools filled up with foreigners.
I hate to break this to you all, but this isn’t really caused by Government policy, but business making economic choices and the advent of cheap and efficient communications!
I hate to break it to you, but government policies encouraged this kind of horse sh!t. The real truth is the businesses are doing this in the *hopes* of finding new markets; between the aging of the US population, and the lack of children here and Europe compared to the Third World, the companies want to have a new customer base. But to do that they have to transfer vast quantities of wealth *to* the Third World, in order to create a middle class which will want their products.
But they are being played for suckers -- too many of the technologies will simply be stolen or appropriated, and the markets closed to US products in the name of Indian or Chinese pride or "anti-Imperialism" or what not.
So - I don’t buy your bit about 1 for 2 displacement. I haven’t seen that in my career, and I’ve been in Silicon Valley as a working engineer for 25+ years now.
Get out of your echo chamber then, and try the East Coast or the Midwest. Scads of Indians there, hired in preference to Americans. And scads more given the same work, only offshore.
The fallacy in your position is this: India and China each have (roughly) a billion or so people. No matter how many jobs we create, it won't matter. They could take *EVERY* job available in the US and still have massive unemployment, unless they force their workers to be very inefficient, to spread the work around. If they leave massive unemployment will favoring a chosen few, there will be massive social unrest. If they do makework with American jobs, there won't be much of a middle class left in the US.
In order to have a durable, sustainable economy, you need to engage in the creation of things people want. Shifting money around creates no new wealth.
Cheers!
In your dreams. They get paid apx 50% of what US Born developers make. That is why management puts up with the crap they write. As long as it solves the immediate problem, management doesn't usually look at long term viability -- the code is, essentially "disposable."
I know what my H1B colleagues make and I know what my US Born colleagues make -- and my 50% figure is quite accurate. And has been for over 10 years.