Posted on 04/14/2012 8:14:05 AM PDT by jiggyboy
It's called outsourcing. American firms do it because foreign labor can be cheaper.
But now, one company is being accused of bringing those lower-paid workers to the U.S. illegally and that may be costing Americans jobs.
-- snip --
Palmer says Infosys, the global high-tech giant, engaged in a systematic practice of visa fraud, a charge the company denies.
Palmer said the first thing to catch his attention was an employee that had been in the U.S. from India several times before.
"He came up to me and he was literally in tears," Palmer said. "He told me he was over here illegally and he didn't wanna be here. He was worried that he would get caught."
-- snip --
Palmer says at first, most came over on H-1B visas. These visas are for people with specialized talents or a level of technical ability that can't be found among American workers.
When asked if all the people had some special expertise that couldn't be found in the U.S., Palmer said, "Absolutely not. Not even close. Many of them is what we call freshers. People that would just come over, whoever they could get to come over. Whoever got accepted for a visa."
Many of the people brought in, in fact, didn't know what they were doing at all, Palmer said.
-- snip --
When the U.S. State Department began to limit the number of H-1B visas, Palmer says Infosys began using another type of visa, the B-1. The B-1 is meant for employees who are traveling to consult with associates, attend training or a convention. But Palmer says the employees were brought in not for meetings, but for full time jobs.
Palmer said the jobs were in "Everything from coding software to testing software to fixing software to installing."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Check post #61
The age thing is changing in a lot of places, especially away from the tech hubs like the Bay. Where I’m at almost the entire engineering department is over age 40, quite a few over age 50. We value experience and wisdom over the willingness to work 100 hours a week. It’s great to be in a “mature” work environment, we almost never work OT, everybody has a life outside work, and we make our dates.
COBOL is still very useful and used in quite a few places in big firms. Ditto MVS, JCL and other such mf skills
You are wrong. I've worked in datawarehousing for nearly 12 years now and your statement is wrong on so many levels. "get the job done" -- you can "get the job done" in ruby on rails but the code is not extensible. You can use MSAccess and VBA but then when the requirements expand you end up with a nightmare tool that functions, but no one knows how and when it breaks down, everyone's in a manic as no one knows how it works or why it works how it does
Secondly, intermediate skills in any technology is ok for basic programming, but you need a couple of years to understand what you can do -- with a guy with 5 years experience that comes down to 3 months, but not less.
Finally, more important than coding which any code monkey can do is software engineering -- thinking logically.
Building a software application isn't really rocket science anymore. -- if you want it to last and have a good foundation for building upon, then yes it is. If you want a hack job that functions right now, but you have to toss out if you ever want to add more functionality then yeah, it's not rocket science
No employer in this economy is going to pay top dollar for a software programmer when there are millions of readily available resources from overseas. -- yes and no. For a basic programmer, yeah. For an engineer, no.
Who doesn't like paying overrated American grads a ridiculous $150 grands with full benefits for writing a piece of code while their jobs are protected by unions. -- incrrect. Fresh American grads would get $40000 a year tops. Top rated engineers will get 100+ and PMs or PgMs will get 150+
Cronos,
Nice description of the difference between coders and software engineers.
You are actually arguing over tools. You can use JAVA-oracle or .NET-SQL server or whatever tools suits you but you miss the point. Datawarehousing itself isn't rocket science or brain surgery .... (unless you are still using assembly language for programming in which case you shouldn't even be in IT business anymore). In fact datawarehousing is actually FAR LESS complicated then say designing a microprocesor or a digital signal processor or for that matter any other engineering fields like automobile,construction,Machining Instrumentation or manufacturing.
“Secondly, intermediate skills in any technology is ok for basic programming, but you need a couple of years to understand what you can do “
I guess we have different definitions of what constitutes intermediate level skill. With only 2 years experience you are still at entry level, not intermediate.
“Finally, more important than coding which any code monkey can do is software engineering — thinking logically.”
Logical thinking isn't necessarily a niche of American grads or software engineers. Even janitors can think logically. You don't need a 4 year college degree in software programming to be able to think.
I don't think either of you got my sarcastic drift. Try again.
Nope. They all care when it come to immigrant bashing. Haven't seen anyone who doesnt. If you have been following US politics... from Al Gore to John Kerry to Joe Biden to Obama’s famous words for Hillary Clinton “governor of Punjab”, H1-B and India bashing is a very common election theme. You may not be paying attention to it but every Indian knows it.
“Who doesn't like paying overrated American grads a ridiculous $150 grands with full benefits for writing a piece of code while their jobs are protected by unions. — incrrect.”
I was being sarcastic. But hey, American grads still expect $150g only so they can pay off their expensive education debt, regardless of their actual market value.
False -- COBOL is excellent for formatting data, handling non-relational databases (and yes, non-relational hierarchical dbs are faster if you have a fixed idea what you are doing
Java is nice enough for toys, but for real power a compiled language is better -- C preferably
COBOL programmers are worth a lot, LOT more than Java or anyone else..
Mainframes handle most of the world's business information processing -- it is highly stable with clear garbage cllection unlike Java or thers. Fortran and cbol do not crash randmly or have data leaks
Nothing, abslutely nothing can beat Cobol fr batch processing. Couple it with a JCL and you've got the best way t crunch numbers and data over and over again, reliably.
Finally -- cobol can be read and understod quite easily, unlike other languages
I’m not arguing over tools. Logic and experience make for a better tol than “get the job done” attitude.
yes. I’ve had sme experience with Cobol and with folks who have tones of experience more than me. Experience counts...
I left COBOL for Foxpro, then C#.NET, a long time ago.
And you tell me I could make much more?
I have seen multiple examples of engineers over 50 being hired (in fact preferred) for a number of roles in my company. A smart company uses the experience and wisdom of older people and brings in fresh perspectives younger professionals.
Anyone in a technical or scientific field needs to “keep up with technology”, if they choose to stopping learning then I can’t understand how they would continue to find their career challenging or rewarding.
Agreed on all fronts.
Then you add my stellar personality, and it becomes a Must Hire Him situation.
For me, a Cobol programmer is hard to find and they are extremely expensive. And after only tiny bug fix I have no more use for them. You cannot build a web application or a mobile iphone/android app in Cobol. Trying to interface a new system with a legacy system is a cost, scope and time nightmare. No new application will ever be written in Cobol. Whatever could be written in Cobol has long been written. The only Cobol programmers you have today are servicing and fixing existing legacy systems not building anything new. Personally if I could, I would any day scrap all the legacy systems and build them new with any of the latest technologies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.