Posted on 03/12/2008 8:59:01 AM PDT by PreciousLiberty
US high-tech companies are being forced to outsource more jobs overseas because of outdated restrictions on immigration, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told Congress Wednesday.
Gates, echoing a longstanding complaint from the technology sector, told a congressional panel that the US immigration system "makes attracting and retaining high-skilled immigrants exceptionally challenging for US firms."
"Congress's failure to pass high-skilled immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation," Gates said in remarks prepared for delivery to a hearing of the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee.
"As a result, many US firms, including Microsoft, have been forced to locate staff in countries that welcome skilled foreign workers to do work that could otherwise have been done in the United States, if it were not for our counterproductive immigration policies."
Gates said the limits on so-called H-1B visas aimed at highly skilled professionals are far too low for the rapidly growing tech sector.
He said the current cap of 65,000 H-1B visas "is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to the US economy's demand for skilled professionals."
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
'Gates also said the United States needs to improve science and math education to train a new generation of tech leaders, reversing a move away from these fields.
"If we don't reverse these trends, our competitive advantage will continue to erode. Our ability to create new high-paying jobs will suffer," Gates said.'
Well, Bill, the thing is that your reliance on low-cost (yes, the H1B program is all about lowering cost) foreign talent is one of the main things that's driven Americans away from tech careers. Engineering salaries have largely been stagnant, at best keeping up with inflation, over these many years you've been complaining about this 'shortage'. According to simple supply and demand, this shouldn't be so.
The fact of the matter is, pay what you should and there will be plenty of American engineering talent. There are other issues, in particular the pervasive anti-intellectualism in America these days, but this is the worst problem.
Yeah, really.....a friend of ours worked at MicroSoft.....trained his “Indian” replacements before he was laid off.....
How bout paying more mister Billionaire?
With all due respect, Microsoft products do not represent even close to state of the art in anything and their quality long ago achieved a new low. Who the heck cares? Let Gates outsource all he wants. His company has never produced anything new, and never will. Let nature take its course and soon Microsoft will go the way of the Yugo.
What an idiot! Problem is his greed.
Yes, American schools and colleges don’t teach the right things - they teach junk, feminist studies, hate-Whitey studies, black studies and queer studies. However, there are millions of Americans who are qualified in spite of all this nonsense. Like those who finished school a few decades ago.
Yep, Bill Gates is driving down tech salaries to embarrassing levels and then wants American kids to study science and math for peanut wages.
Bill Gates... you are a college dropout. Now bugger off with that crap operating system of yours.
Gates' idiotic pronouncements make me want to do my part to advance that date.
It’s easy to just say Microsoft should pay their code-crankers more money but cranking code ain’t what it used to be. Further, people do indeed like it when Microsoft shares in their 401K’s produce profit. So... usually company’s caught in this dilemma pack up and move.
“With all due respect, Microsoft products do not represent even close to state of the art in anything and their quality long ago achieved a new low. Who the heck cares? Let Gates outsource all he wants. His company has never produced anything new, and never will. Let nature take its course and soon Microsoft will go the way of the Yugo.”
I suggest you take a look at Microsoft’s market cap and P/E ratio. It is an extremely profitable company, and it still has a veritable stranglehold on the PC marketplace. Apple is making some inroads, but it’s not even a horse race at this point.
When one of America’s most powerful companies pitches the government like this, it’s time to pay close attention to protect both individual and national interests.
Dear Bill,
1. Raise the salaries and U. S. citizens will do the jobs.
2. Use the Gates Foundation’s billions to train workers who have lost their jobs in manufacturing to learn tech jobs.
3. Learn a little public relations. Having the richest man in the world complaining that he can’t get U. S. workers to work at the salary someone from India is willing to take is more than a bit hypocritical. Spend your billions on suffering U. S. workers instead of in Africa.
1. They should be tied to the employee rather than the employer. That way a foreign employee's wages would very quickly match a native's of similar skill because the employer couldn't underpay the employee and give them the choice of accepting it or leaving the country.
2. (mutually exclusive from number 1) If the H1B has to remain with the employer, then its price should be set by the employers bidding for slots rather than having a low fixed price. That way the H1B would go back to its original purpose of bringing in foreign workers with unique and highly valuable skills rather than just another hundred cheap Visual Basic programmers for under the market pay. A company might be willing to pay $50k to bring in an advanced semiconductor researcher but not someone to man a help desk. The fact that over 65,000 applications are made in the first week for the visas shows that they are way under priced.
Exactly right. Either of those two options would solve the problem completely - which is why industry screams bloody murder when either one is suggested. ;)
Good thinking, Billy Boy. You left out one critical aspect of this debate: corporate greed. I love the free market and Capitalism as much as anyone, but the reality is that corporations, like MS will always be looking for ways to cut costs. If he got everything he asked for, Billy Boy would be figuring out some other way make higher profits, regardless of what effect that may have on local shops or the country at-large.
He respects no border line, only the bottom line.
This may come as a shock to you, Bill, but some of us see the United States as more than simply an economy.
He was, and always will be, a “Damned Hippie”.
HA....what I did not say about the guy who worked for MicroSoft who trained his replacements? He’s Canadian born (parents brought him here when he was about 7).....I’m hoping, too, that he’s finally becoming a conservative.
I watched the movie “Amazing Grace” last night on DVD. The main argument that the wealthy plantation owners used to justify using slave labor in their sugar cane plantations was that they could not make a profit to pay their taxes to the crown.
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