Magna Cum Unemployed

Computerworld ^ | APRIL 28, 2003 | Donald Finley

[harpseal]

Give it time and you too will join the ranks of the unemployed.

[Willie Green]

U.S. White-Collar Jobs in Wave of Emigration

[TexanToTheCore]

My sympathies. I am employed in the same sector as you and it is very tough to find work at this time. Many of the IT teams that I have worked with in the last year are Indian and these are all teams from Big accounting firms. It may pay to look at another major, such as engineering although I found numbers from the IEEE that show that Electrical Engineers have an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent.

Start you own firm is probably the best advice.

[Vortex]

Yep, H1B as it is, sucks.

My main gripe is I don't think corporations should able to use residence (if not citizenship) as a perk to attract everyday talent. If were talking top of their field guys that's one thing I suppose, but average talent, no way.

As for Donald's plight, even without H1B or the sagging economy, the programmer market is unusual in that anyone (who has the $ and desire) can get a PC, buy a book and a relatively cheap compiler (if not free) and teach themselves. Even after he get's his first real IT job, he'll have to keep re-training to keep up with the latest stuff or risk being pushed aside by someone who has. You basically have to make your own oppotunities and even more so in the current environment.

As someone mentioned, maybe he should've been a plumber. Once you learn $#it runs down hill, you've got it, right? No offense to that profession intended ;-)

[sirshackleton]

Actually, I went through my unemployment spell for the year already :)

[Cacophonous]

Thanks for the link. I wonder if all those "consultants" and smart kids with compooters have reconsidered their opinions that "It's only blue-collar jobs that are lost; the kind we don't want to dirty our hands with anyway. We'e in a techno-age now. Don't need to know how to make things, just need to know how to move money."

[harpseal]

Then sir, I suggest that you not become over confident. the simple fact is without an abundance of well paying jobs in the USA absolutely every business will be hit in some way. It is not a pretty fact but it is a fact.

[3AngelaD]

Regardless of the answer to your question, and I suspect American workers are the equal of any on the face of the Earth, it is wrong for the U.S. government to allow companies to bring in employees from overseas and give them jobs Americans can perform. It is wrong for the country's immigration laws to in effect flood the labor market, putting extreme downward pressure on wages, in a way that would never be tolerated if it were a policy that flooded, say, the money supply and resulted in inflation. We have an election coming up, everyone ought to be asking their various elected representatives, in public and often, what they're doing to fix this. We all know that the American taxpayer is further injured when he or she has to subsidize these companies' cheap labor in many, many ways, throught subsidized housing, schools, Medicaid, food stamps, etc. We are getting screwed twice. End H1_B

[PokeyJoe]

yes, but they work cheap, you don't have to offer them benefits, and because they are a VISA holder - you ALWAYS have leverage against them to do things the way you want them to do it.

You don't like management deciding to spend an extra 300 million dollars on stock buy back instead of buying a new ACD phone system. "I"m sorry Raji, but we can't renew your visa, you may have to go back to tim buck 2. Now, what were you saying about that ACD system again?"

leverage.

it's all about leverage. price (cheaper) and power (more of it).

[demlosers]

Right before the war, there was, or still is a government IT job in Kuwait that deals with firewalls and the unix operating system. It pays real well-- $320,000. They couldn't find anybody to fill the position so the salary went up and up.

[Joe_October]

The writer left out some details. Were his grades inflated like the majority of schools? Did he realize that a BS degree is not enough anymore because they have dummied it down to get more students into the program? Why did he switch from Engineering to Computer Science? Money or interest?

He could open his own business and offer to fix computers for people. You could work all day long at great wages if you know how to fix things. What actual skills does he have other than what the professor told him?

I'm an engineer who can program. I'm worth more to a company by a long stretch because I can do both. No need to translate from Engineering to computer speak. Just tell me what you want and I'll get it done.

And, I do have a 3rd prize genius award from the Cub Scouts that really would stack my resume.

That said, I have sympathy for this fellow. They were lying to you when they said you would get millions making web pages. Get your master's degree, adjust your expectations and get up and do it.

[Mr. Jeeves]

once you have a program that does the job you want it to as fast as you want it to,why would you pay someone to change everything?...

Remember, we are talking about vertical applications - these are not programs like Microsoft Word, but software that is customized for the specific needs of a given company.

An example: changes in the law. Programs that calculate tax payments or human resources forms often have to be modified many times a year to keep up with legislation that the Barbara Boxers of the world implement without even considering their impact. The Patriot Act mandated the development of a huge amount of new reporting software for most financial firms. Changes in the law amount to a huge, hidden tax on many companies, because they have to adapt their IT infrastructures to accomodate new legal requirements.

And of course there is the routine stuff like growth in the size of the business that has to be accounted for.

Programmers displaced rooms full of clerical types in the 60's and 70's, now we are ourselves being displaced by foreign labor. Everything has its day in the sun, and the generic IT professional's day is coming to an end.

[Grut]

..... why this program still exists is beyond me.

And what about taxi drivers? With all the foreigners driving taxis, what's a new philosophy Phd supposed to do?

[harpseal]

Do the foreigners actually get the job done?

The jury is still out on that one.

Did the US citizens turn in equal or better work than the foreigners?

Until the move to outsource to cut costs gained steam in the year 2000 the US IT worker had the reputation of producing a far superior product that was worth teh higher cost. the conversion of many systems to handle the Y2K problem was outsourced for much of the scut work and it was deemed of sufficient quality that adequate code (product) could be gotten by moving offshore. Now, since companies see the cost cuts for the low end work and they hear promises about the high end work they are moving their systems work now plus with the H1b workers they have far superior control over these employees because if they were to let one go he/she is out of the country.

H1B workers who had been continuously employed find themselves looking for work when they get a green card.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

You are quite correct and this will be the firestorm political issue of our times. The Democrats will win big if the Republicans keep importing foreigners to take the few jobs left and cheering the export of the rest of the jobs. Hamburger flipping as a vocation? Even McDonalds is losing money!!

If education can't get you a job, who needs education? If Republicans don't want Americans to be employed at a decent standard of living, how long before Republicans are the most hated of all earthly creatures?

Hillary will ride in as president and she will do it on the jobs issue. You can't debate free-trade economics with a voter who can't pay the rent or buy groceries.

[Mini-14]

I don't think EITHER party has figured out that there is a political advantage in keeping Americans employed. I MYSELF would vote for Hillary over Bush if Hillary decides to oppose the H-1B and L-1 programs.

[Centurion2000]

Right before the war, there was, or still is a government IT job in Kuwait that deals with firewalls and the unix operating system. It pays real well-- $320,000.

Talk about irony .... I think my friend actually turned that job down :)

[palmer]

if Hillary decides to oppose the H-1B and L-1 programs

You might want to consider the possibility of her lying to get your vote.

[Reeses]

once you have a program that does the job you want it to as fast as you want it to,why would you pay someone to change everything?

I remember someone asking me that same question 20 years ago. A lot has changed though some things have not. There are many companies still running 30 year old mainframe programs. One of the biggest reasons for software changes is to meet customer requests. A return on investment is not a factor, making or stealing sales from a competitor is the point. Another big reason is when software and hardware vendors stop supporting old versions to force an upgrade and more sales. These same vendors sell buggy products on purpose to plant the seeds of future sales, Microsoft being an example. Sometimes a company upgrades to prevent a competitor from gaining a possible advantage, or to support an executive's ambitions, marketability, or ego. Many IT workers want to play with the latest toys, want themselves to stay employable since few new projects involve old technology. Dirt cheap hardware increases demand for doing more and more with computers. On the other hand there are a large percentage of IT workers that build job security into their work. They make systems overly complex which then break a lot and require constant attention. Often the oldest systems are the worst, no one can figure out how they work so they don't get upgraded. There are many forces going on why IT workers stay employed.

[Alouette]

there was, or still is a government IT job in Kuwait that deals with firewalls and the unix operating system. It pays real well-- $320,000. They couldn't find anybody to fill the position so the salary went up and up.

Damn, I would have taken that job in a heart beat!

But they wouldn't have hired me because I am--(one of those ethnic/racial/religious/gender persons that they don't allow over there)

Why can't I sue for discrimination?