Posted on 05/21/2014 11:23:28 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Put out a job search for a programmer.
I do that regularly. I was a developer and now in my waning years I teach development and database courses full time. I stay in touch with what is out there for my students, especially since a lot of my students are working adults, career changers, and master’s degree students trying to move up or hold their positions. Lot’s of job openings. I find that more jobs seem to be offered to our international students (as H1Bs) than to those americans many of whom have 10-20 years of IT experience.
It was bad 15 years ago. I can’t imagine what it’s like now.
“The report notes that wages for an individual who holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science as seen annual salaries rise from $82,896 in 2000 to only $85,896 in 2012 — an increase of only 0.3%.”
That’s why.
Programmers have a shelf life. I find that my older colleagues are less likely to embrace new technology. Most of the applicants with Java/Groovy experience are foreign-born. Most of the older programmers are more versed in old technology.
Most of the older programmers and DB people I know or come into contact with are out there staying current along with the younger ones. They know how to embrace new tech. Hell, I’m 63 and I still keep up to speed in a number of technologies and languages. I went to the Visual Studio Live 2013 in Redmond and at least half of the attendees were in their 40s and above. Another thing is that a lot of companies out there still have large COBOL and JCL commitments and since there is no longer a pipeline for those skills a lot of places are reluctant to dump their older experienced mainframe people. Us old farts who keep our skills updated are out here and there are more of us than most think.
we chose to use an IT consultant from the management consulting arm of our accountants one year
he was here on an H1B and he was VERY good
but, he was getting screwed by the accounting firm he was working for
he was supposed to have only been on-loan from the firm’s partner company in the Philippines, but they had refused to honor that temporary agreement and were keeping him on here in the states
so his old firm back in the Philippines got him blackballed back there, after he refused to himself quit the arrangement here and go back
then the firm here continued to break their promises to help him get his green card
and, their billing rate to us for him was just about the highest in the industry, but he could not leave them and go to work for someone else (an H1B slave), and by then there was no going home, so the firm here paid him far less than what an independent consultant doing the same work would get and less than others in his firm doing the same work but not here on an H1B
it was years and a lot of legal expense before he got out of that mess
he is now an independent IT consultant, US citizen, working on some very big long term with IBM where IBM has become the IT department for some big firms
sometimes the bad parts of H1B are bad both ways - for people here passed over for a firm’s favored H1B person, and the H1B person who gets stuck with his H1B employer and can go no where else
my?
I’d detach the filing of the H1B from employers, it would not be theirs to apply for and they’d have nothing to do with any H1B quotas
workers overseas would apply for the H1B themselves, unattached at the time to any employer
they’d be given a set time limit to come to the states and find a job in the job category they applied for the H1B for
THEY would chose their employer the same as any other worker and no employer would have any advantage over their services compared to any other employer
for the period they were here on the H1B they could change employers as long as the work remained in their H1B category
the kind of stats like the STEM stats in the report that started this thread would determine the H1B quotas individuals overseas would meet
it would end the H1B slave status and because it would it would be harder to use or hold onto the H1B holders on lower salaries, because they’d be as free in the marketplace as anyone else in their line of work
It’s nice to know that there are people such as yourself who have a fair-minded and compassionate view of the H1B employees. I doubt that many people even realize that green card immigrants often get a bad deal.
“It’s nice to know that there are people such as yourself who have a fair-minded and compassionate view of the H1B employees.”
I have seen both sides.
I was using an IT outfit on a special project. The principal had immigrated from India more then twenty years ago. He asked if a young friend who wanted to talk to him could join us for lunch. In their conversations over lunch, he was coaching his young friend (also from India) about how (a) not to worry, how he and the younger man’s dad had plenty of friends who could seek an H1B for him, and (b) not to worry, they had a network of people who could coach him enough to sound qualified in a small nich of the SAP software & database system, and (c) not to worry even after getting a position in that nich they would all cover for him and supply any on-the-job answers he needed to get an O.K. job done; and (d) not to worry, the rest would be history and “he’d be in” and then he could help do the same for his cousins.
How does this work so easily? Employers have to do very little to prove the person they are trying to get an H1B for is absolutely unavailable. Little investigation is ever done.
Does it make the H1B person a bad person or does it many are not especially qualified? No. It means the system of the H1B is easily abused and ripe with abuse.
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.