Posted on 07/21/2014 7:07:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) criticized Microsoft founder Bill Gates for calling on Congress to increase STEM worker visas while the company plans to cut 18,000 jobs next year.
“Super billionaires aren’t happy apparently. … They declare we need to import more foreign workers,” Sessions said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Mr. Gates says we need to let more and more people into our country to take those kinds of jobs.”
Sessions was referring to an op-ed in which Gates called on the House to pass the bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill. That legislation would increase the number of worker visas for immigrants in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
Sessions pointed out that Microsoft announced Thursday that it plans to layoff nearly 20,000 workers in an effort to streamline. He said those workers should take priority over immigrants.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
RE: Steve Balmer is running Microsoft and he has 2 billion dollars of walking around money
Steve Ballmer WAS running Microsoft. But NOT ANY MORE. It is now Satya Nadella and he was the one who announced the 18,000 layoffs last week.
But yes, Ballmer still has over $20 Billion to play with.
We don’t need any more foreign workers, period.
Engineers are losing jobs. Hubby lost his last fall. Large defense contractor. He’d worked for them for over 25 years. They’ve had 4 layoffs in the last 18 months, and laid off more than a thousand workers at all levels. In the round that caught Hubby, more than 95% of those laid off were part of the old company-funded pension program. Company was just cutting overhead, not getting rid of workers it didn’t need. At the time he was laid off, Hubby was working on a program that was fully funded and had funds for the foreseeable future. Company just didn’t want to keep contributing to his pension plan.
“Bill Gates is no different than the slave owners of two centuries ago who wanted to keep importing other people to work their fields.”
Bill, and every business owner, seems to demand cheaper wages, cheaper people, but they have more and more money. I don’t begrudge anyone making a buck, but they must do it fairly. They demand to sell their products in the US but they don’t want to hire US citizens. I say let them go sell their products in the countries they hire they workers.
“If that was true, there would be a spike in the wage rates for engineers, scientists, and other STEM workers. The truth is that those wage rates have been flat for well over a decade “
I work in engineering. I know for a fact that there are more applicants than openings.
Agreed - I thought he said more openings than apps., which
is the standard refrain of the H1B promoters. My mistake...
I had a well thought out response for this, and then decided to distill it down to this: expect microsoft to buy out a software company somewhere in India or Asia, and use that to re-incorporate in that country. Expect all of the
other major software companies to follow suit, if they want to compete, or even survive for that matter. Asia, china, and India are now the top producers of the world, and the US has been relegated to second-world status, like europe, the UK, and other former superpowers of their time.
No nursing shortage.
Hospitals are not hiring new nurses, don’t want the cost of training them.
No problem. I have been in engineering for 30+ years. I have seen every excuse the invader supporters use. We’ve all seen American train their H1B replacements; H1B replacements that were supposed to be hired if and only if there were no Americans to do the job.
“No nursing shortage. Hospitals are not hiring new nurses, don’t want the cost of training them.”
There is in Denver. Hospitals can’t get enough good nurses. There are all kinds of terrible nurses, but the good ones are probably 1 in 20.
The Microsoft company was the subject. Sessions says they are losing 18k jobs, but doubtful MS even has that many engineers, researchers, etc.
I am an engineer, or at least trying to get a job again now that our son is in school. Keeping tabs on my last company, indeed they have had professional layoffs about every year since I left. But still sometimes hire a few.
So indeed, maybe there are many qualified Americans, but that doesn’t apply to MS necessarily.
Even if they are, no one can force those people into jobs they don’t want. Some are qualified but have moved on, others don’t want to work (me until now), and others will only work nearby, cannot move (me).
Bottom line, staying relevant to the thread, comparing line jobs to pro STEM is apples and oranges. If he wants to criticize, he better make sure he is making direct comparisons.
I live in the world of the defense industry. The industry has seen a price adjustment driven by two factors: the government overpaid during the expansion of defense spending during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and defense spending has seen significant cuts in existing and new contracts over the past three years. A massive correction has been the result and wage rates are lower in most defense markets, especially engineering services. This trend will continue according to DoD’s budget estimates.
That is a fact well understood by everyone in this industry. Pure BS would be a term most likely to be used by someone not familiar with this particular piece of the economy.
Bill Gates is LYING to Congress about a lack of skilled workers.
And he’s p!ssing in my cornflakes when he does so by lowering the wages for the entire industry.
Another Billion Dollar Marxist who can never have too much.
Crony Communism works for the Politburo. Orwell knew this.
Bill Gates will not hire western Europeans.
He is behind the common core dumb down of education as well.
You state the facts. Another fact is that most places which use nurses are understaffed everywhere.
The same can be said for scores of other professions. I am one person in a 1.6 person department. During the "horrible Bush economy" we had four people doing approximately the same work that 1.6 of us are doing now.
As more illegals, druggies, winos and derelicts flood the health care system demanding their "rights" under ObaMaoCare, the nursing shortage is only going to get worse even if it doesn't mean more nursing hires.
Bill Gates huge home: http://seattle.curbed.com/archives/2013/01/bill-gates-medina-mansion.php
The local dialysis has an “on-call” doctor who visits once a month for a few hours and his office is about 50 miles away. I have been told the nurses who work there are not terribly competent and that it is quite unusual when a patient or two doesn’t drop dead every month or so.
Kind of a strange definition of “on-call”.
Sort of like the big city cops— on-call to come and draw a chalk line around murder victims, not to check the culture which spawns them . . .
We have a different set of experiences.
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