Which Google Should Congress Believe?

theodp writes "In Congressional testimony last month, Google's VP of People Operations told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration that, due to limits on the number of H-1B visas, Google is regularly unable to pursue highly qualified candidates. But as Google stock tumbled in after hours trading Wednesday, Google's CEO blamed disappointing profits on a hiring binge and promised Wall Street analysts that the company would keep a careful eye on headcount in the future. So which Google should Congress believe?"

The two are not mutually exclusive

[bartyboy (99076)]

The lack of qualified candidates doesn't mean that Google can't hire people with less/no talent.

For all we know they hired 10,000 janitors and have trouble finding programmers.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[vfrex (866606)]

I was about to hit the trigger on the same title. The two are not mutually exclusive, and this article is flame bait.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[Jeremy_Bee (1064620)]

Thirded, (not a word I know). This article should be removed, it's junk.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[Retric (704075)]

Yea, the article is junk but so is the H1B quota system. It seems like the simple solution is for the government to auction off H1B's.

If Google really want's someone they can offer 50k but they can probably get local talent for cheaper. My guess is H1B's would balance out to around 25K a pop and most Americans would be fine competing on that type of playing field.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[dup_account (469516)]

OMG! Finally someone has a bright idea on how to fix this! Please mod up as insightful.

Also, I think them getting in on this side of the H1B argument goes against their "do no evil" policy. I may not seem so microly, but macroly it hurts everyone except those 70 people they want to hire.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[The Raven (30575)]

Bullshit. It doesn't hurt those foreign workers who have lots of talent and want to get paid well for their skills. Nor does it hurt their families who get money home from Azheem.

Oh... wait... to you, evil means 'slightly less good for me personally, or the people I identify with as a nation'. Being against protectionism isn't evil... in fact, if you're for the benefit of the human race as a whole, protectionist policies are evil. Free trade, without tariffs, may hurt some people, but it helps others... you're just whining because you happen to be neighbors with the people who might get hurt in the short term, and don't care about those other-skin-colored people who get a significant benefit in the short and long term from open border policies.

Personally I'm gonna side with Google. I think nasty immigration restrictions are evil, and I support their push to increase H1B visas.

Disclosure: I'm a white, 30ish male who works in IT and lives in flyover country. I won't benefit from H1B visas, nor do I know anyone who would. But I still think they're a good thing.

Google is evil.

[gumpish (682245)]

Also, I think them getting in on this side of the H1B argument goes against their "do no evil" policy.

You will observe that "Don't be evil" no longer appears in their credo.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/tenthings. html [google.com]

Sure, #6 says "You can make money without being evil", but it doesn't say that Google will itself refrain from evil.

Once you go public, you answer to the shareholders, who are usually more interested in money than morals.

Re:

[ucblockhead (63650)]

You cannot find local talent in Silicon Valley for $50k.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Then either leave Silicon Valley -- there are plenty of lower-cost places in the U.S. with talented tech workers -- or pay more.

Just because some company wants to hire programmers at $35k a year, while staying in a high-cost area, doesn't mean they have some magical right to do it.

Re:

[bladesjester (774793)]

AFAIK, H1B visas have to be paid the same as other employees, and extensive documentation is required to show that this criteria is met.

Supposed to be, yes. In reality it almost never is. They cook the numbers as badly as any movie studio.

Re:

[Maxo-Texas (864189)]

Oh yea... and the 2/3 burn rate doesn't reflect the fact that they tell me that Infosys pays them a salary but expects them to work 60 hours a week. When infosys commits to a deadline- they have to work even more sometimes (without extra compensation or time off). They are willing too since currently the wage differential is like making $200k a year. Once the rupee comes up enough, the dollar drops enough, and the wage inflation brings them close to parity, and they get a little older and wiser, they are

Re:The field is already level ,though

[Copid (137416)]

AFAIK, H1B visas have to be paid the same as other employees, and extensive documentation is required to show that this criteria is met.

I don't totally disagree with you on this point, but it's not usually difficult to manipulate systems like the one you're describing and get away with whatever you need to. Auctioning off the visas would (at least, market wide on average) do away with any incentive to hire H1Bs simply for salary reasons. Sure, there'd still be the decrease that comes with an increase in supply, but if there were any systematic underpayment going on, it would be accounted for in additional costs for the visas. We could then do away with any unnecessary salary documentation and investigation.

Re:

[Bobby Mahoney (1005759)]

Or perhaps... It's the Microsoft-hive-brain itself writing the article!

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[Red Flayer (890720)]

For all we know they hired 10,000 janitors and have trouble finding programmers.

Or because of a lack of real talent to recruit, they had to hire 10,000 PoS programmers instead of 3000 good ones, hence high payroll and emplyee overhead expenses. Could be used as more fuel for their arguments to increase the H1B visa cap.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

Or because of a lack of real talent to recruit, they had to hire 10,000 PoS programmers instead of 3000 good ones, hence high payroll and emplyee overhead expenses.

Surely the people at Google have read The Mythical Man Month and are smart enough to know that 3 programmers of lesser talent do not in any way equal 1 programmer of greater talent. Just as 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month, adding more people to a project rarely speeds it up and almost always slows it down.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[PCM2 (4486)]

Just as 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month, adding more people to a project rarely speeds it up and almost always slows it down.

Just remember, though -- while 9 women may not be able to make a baby in 1 month, they most certainly can make 9 babies in 9 months, while even the most talented woman would have a hard time producing more than 2.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[eln (21727)]

Sure, but then you have all of the additional overhead costs associated with maintaining 9 babies instead of just one.

Re:

[PCM2 (4486)]

Not if they're foreign babies! Clearly, the high cost of American babies is the problem here, not procreation in general.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[PCM2 (4486)]

So what are you saying? I need to have sex with 9 women this month in order to optimize overall baby production?

Not exactly. The Mythical Man Month teaches us that when you're having woman problems, throwing more women at the problem is never the solution.

The formula is n(n-1)/2 ... that is, for each group of women n, the number of channels of communication in the group is equal to n times n-1 (where the 1 is you), divided by two.

Because of this, Fred Brooks recommends that you not engage any baby-producers until the overall system of women is well architected. Note that this process can take an incredibly long time. Another solution is to employ women with off-the-shelf babies, which often come with a third-party support contract.

Re:

[SerpentMage (13390)]

>>Canada's lighter immigration restrictions apparently allow them to have more of the best people that they can find (overseas), but still have them 'close to home'.

This is why the immigration debate is so screwed in America. Canada's immigration system is not lighter. Canada's immigration system is hard, but if you have the skills you can immigrate! There is a big difference between what America does, and what Canada does. Yet people seem to confuse the issues.

What America has done and this is the da

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[timeOday (582209)]

Or maybe they hired 3000 great people, but just wish they didn't have to pay so darn much because investors want them to spend less money [battlecreekenquirer.com]. See? No contradiction.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[dup_account (469516)]

This is why our stock market driven economy is so messed up. Gee, they didn't make super numbers this quarter because they were building for the future....

I love this quote "Investors wanted less spending, more growth".... And I'd like someone to leave a pound of gold on my doorstep every day.... Hmm, ain't happening. I better punish Google stock for it.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[servognome (738846)]

This is why our stock market driven economy is so messed up. Gee, they didn't make super numbers this quarter because they were building for the future....

As opposed to the DotCom era where spectacular losses made the stock rise because companies were building for the future.

I love this quote "Investors wanted less spending, more growth"....

Yes that's a pretty generic statement, most likely there were some specific expectations investors had that weren't met.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[eln (21727)]

Maybe they're having trouble because the best programmers know they can get hired anywhere they want and don't have the patience to deal with Google's ridiculously long and convoluted hiring process.

Re:

[spencerogden (49254)]

FWIW, the Google interview process I was involved with was much quicker than I expected. 3 phone interviews and an on site in the span of about a month. From first contact to job offer was about 6 weeks. It is surprising how quickly their workforce is growing.

Stupid question

[Verteiron (224042)]

Whichever one makes the larger campaign contribution.

Duh.

how about believing that this is a false dichotomy

[moderatorrater (1095745)]

Seriously, just because Google says they hired too many people doesn't mean that they don't also believe there's a shortage of qualified people because of immigration. There are a lot of other jobs at Google that don't involve development, and their statement to wall street might make sense if you view it as, "yeah, we hired too many people, including under-qualified developers."

Re:how about believing that this is a false dichot

[Otter (3800)]

While that's theoretically true, it's funny to see everyone here rushing to embrace the "American programmers are incompetent! We need more immigrants, now!" position if that's what it takes to defend Google's honor.

Re:

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

You don't have to believe that American programmers are incompetent. Google want to hire the top n% (for the sake of argument, let's pretend n=1). A significant proportion of this group may be in the US, but I can't believe that they all are. Of those that are, a great many are likely to already have jobs and not want to move. Once Google have hired all of the developers who are American, in the top 1%, and unemployed, or willing to change jobs, then they have to move on to people who only match two of

Re:how about believing that this is a false dichot

[djones101 (1021277)]

American programmers are qualified alright on average, but there aren't enough of them.

Personally, I'd disagree with that statement. The lack is qualified programmers that live in the tech-rich areas of the country. I've met certified programmers who could make code practically sing, putting others in Silicon Valley to shame. The difference was they didn't want to live in LA, or Houston, or any other tech-rich area. They enjoyed their smaller cities where you don't fight a 2-hour backup in the morning for a 15-minute drive. The qualified programmers are out there, the companies just need to learn that they need to look beyond the silicon corridor and the outsourcing countries.

Re:

[mi (197448)]

I've met certified programmers who could make code practically sing

You have? That's called "anecdotal evidence". Anyway, those people you met (whoever "certified" them) are already gainfully employed, aren't they? Which means, if Google were to hire them, their current employer would'be short. Which just reaffirms, what I said: "There are qualified programmers, we just don't have enough of them". And I like that personally as a programmer (although Google chose not to hire me for some reason after 3 inte

Qualifications

[Pyramid (57001)]

And by "qualifications", they mean, "willing to work for pennies"

Re:Qualifications

[moderatorrater (1095745)]

Actually, by "qualifications" they mean "people who have Ph.D.s"; they're similar to what you were saying, I know, but the difference is there.

Re:Qualifications

[Pyramid (57001)]

No. I meant what I meant. Ph.D. or Devry graduate is irrelevant. Generally, most companies complaining they can't find qualified American candidates really mean, 'We can't find qualified native candidates for the paltry compesation we're offering". No wonder considering the cost of higher education these days.

I work at a huge company with plenty of H1B holders. The ratio of talented to useless slob H1B holders is roughly the same as "home grown" employees here. It's just that the H1B folks COST LESS.

Re:Qualifications

[phantomfive (622387)]

I have to disagree completely on this point, at least in the programming industry. In our company, we are looking for good people; those who know how to self-manage and have strong programming skills, or at least the ability to grow into strong programming skills. If we are able to hire two people a month then we are really happy. We run into people who have these kinds of problems:

1. They are applying for a job they are clearly not qualified for. Maybe they studied system administration for two years at DeVry and then apply for a programming job.
2. They can't program at all. "Well, it looks like on your resume you have 6 years programming industry experience in java. Could you please write on the board a program to swap two variables? ............um.....yeah, something like that...." (I did not make that example up, she literally did not know how to swap two variables).
3. Once a month or so we run into a highly talented programmer who has been in the industry for a long time and really know what they are doing. These guys are always interesting to talk to so I love doing interviews with them because I always learn something new. Unfortunately they are looking for a short term consulting gig and we are looking for people to stay with us in the long term.

And this is all BEFORE we even talk about salaries. We are willing to pay enough, we just can't find the people. Furthermore, I don't know anyone who can't find a job. Recent college graduates might have a little trouble, but it's because they don't know how to look, not because there are not jobs. Try looking at smaller companies, they generally treat their employees better, have more potential, and are easier to get hired into than giants like google. If you are a good programmer and can't find a job, then let me know because first of all I won't believe you and second of all I want to hire you [slashdot.org].

Re:

[kisrael (134664)]

my favorite bit of hiring dumbness: http://kisrael.com/viewblog.cgi?date=2005.11.09 [kisrael.com]

it is ASTONISHING at the low quality of people you can interview. Degrees are only super-loosely correlated.

BTW, w/ swap two variables... could they use a third place holder, or was it meant to be more clever than that?

Re:

[SeattleGameboy (641456)]

I am sorry, but if you want to attract top talent, you need to pay top money. "enough" isn't enough.

You are very arrogant if you believe that your company is so special that people will want to work there over other companies just because you pay "enough"

I GUARANTEE you will have all the qualified candidates you want if you start offering 2X the salary that you are offering right now.

Oh, you are not willing to do that? Well, then be satisfied with hiring two people a month because that is all you are

Re:Qualifications

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

Last I checked, PhDs were not affected by H1B caps (at least, not those from all countries of origin), since there were other visa programs available for those with advanced degrees.

Outsourcing?

[Renaissance 2K (773059)]

I didn't realize IT companies weren't allowed to hire American workers.

Looks like

[Maxo-Texas (864189)]

Google spent oodles of boodle hiring the entire kit and caboodle while the managers went feudal.

If they think congress will buy both stories, they lost their noodles!

Maybe

[ZachPruckowski (918562)]

Maybe they couldn't get the smart A+ guys, and hired two A- guys to compensate?

I'm not defending Google here, I'm just pointing out that the two statements are not totally contradictory. Technically, all the google blog said is "There exist candidates that we can't hire (but would like to) because of immigration laws".

Google lies

[athloi (1075845)]

There is no shortage of IT workers, especially good ones, but companies make more profit off of young workers and foreign workers they can treat like slaves. See To H1-B or not to H-1B? [informationweek.com]. And in the minds of many experienced project managers, quality of worker's intelligence and experience are more important than having 10,000 interchangable drones as Google seems to want. See Smart and Gets Things Done [regdeveloper.co.uk].

Both..

[pickyouupatnine (901260)]

Like any public company - Google's learning to deal with keeping a steady growth in-order to keep its stock healthy. While they may have hired too many people recently - those are too many VERY WELL PAID people compared to what they could get for the same money if they could bring in H1-B workers. The H1-B worker is looking to come to America and start a new life - he/she is willing to sacrifice a few years worth of inferior pay inorder to get settled with a Greencard.

So yes, Google CEO blamed their hiring binge - what he really meant was "We're paying too much in wages and salaries - more than we'd like to anyway".

Cheap Labor Lobbyists

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Of course both are the same Google - and its not talking out of both sides of its billion-dollar mouth. If Google could hire more H1B workers in its "hiring spree", then it would cost less, and therefore profits on the same (or even somewhat less) revenue would be higher.

Google, like other American corporations, wants to hire H1B "guest workers" because they're cheaper than citizens or fulltime residents. Guest workers subsidize their American work time by spending more time back home in their foreign country, which usually costs less to live in than the US. So they can ask for lower pay than their American competition, who have to live here full time. With our higher cost labor protections, environmental protections, and overall higher quality of life - for most everyone - with its higher cost.

So Google wants to build its brand and infrastructure on the vast, longterm American investment in the Internet and creating most of its indexed content. It wants to tap the PhDs that Americans have invested in producing to make a less-valuable foreigner workforce more productive. And it wants to charge American corporate customers the money with which it pays them, while pitching expensive equity to mostly American investors. All underwritten by foreigner labor, even though there are plenty of Americans available, though at a higher price.

I'm not surprised: that's business. It's also kinda evil.

Re:Cheap Labor Lobbyists

[Onan (25162)]

(Disclaimer: I do work for Google, and do occasionally provide input on the hiring of individual candidates, but I have no unusual insight into our nation-level hiring strategies. I'm not speaking for them in any official sense, just opining about what I've seen of the culture.)

Everything that I've see of Google's hiring practices indicates that their primary goal is acquiring the absolute best, most brilliant people possible. I'm sure at some point cost is a concern, but it's not a primary thing that drives the decision of whether to hire particular engineers.

Finding and hiring fantastic people is an astonishingly hard thing to do, and we invest substantial resources into doing it. We absolutely never have as many extremely-gifted candidates as we'd like, and probably never will. But every single hiring process discussion I've heard has been about "how can we find better candidates" or just "how can we find more candidates". I have definitely never heard anything even vaguely like "how can we find cheaper candidates".

If you posit that exceptionally talented engineers are equally distributed among all populations with access to at least a moderate level of technology, then probably about half of them in existence are non-American. (And even if you believe that they are unequally distributed, it's hard to dispute that at least some nontrivial number of them are non-American.) I believe that Google's interest is in getting access to that additional set of exceptionally talented engineers, not just getting more engineers of the same talent for less money.

satellite branching?

[MoFoQ (584566)]

I wonder if they can't set up a satellite office/company in a country that is more friendly in terms of worker visas (Cananda or maybe Google's own island-country) and then "out-source" all their development to that other "Google" company.

If you think about it....allowing more H-1 visas would actually help to save more American jobs as those foreign hi-tech workers will live here and buy things, eat at restaurants locally (it's not like they will be flying back to their country of origin just to grab a bite to eat), buy services (phone, TV, etc.) locally as well as pay American income and sales taxes which gets pumped right back into the community.
If not, companies will have no choice but to out-source or move those specific projects overseas if they can not find enough qualified workers locally, and that means the govt loses on tax income.

Where is your thinking?

[JRHelgeson (576325)]

How is this a serious question? As a business owner, my business is expanding. I'm seeking qualified individuals from within the USA and from overseas. Good talent is hard to find. I am also hiring 2 low-end employees for each 1 high-end educated employee desired. The two I do hire will only produce .75 of the expected output of 1 good employee. This sucks.

It saddens me to say this but work ethic is sorely lacking in America today. The college professors I interact with on a daily basis confirm that the kids entering college today have not recieved a proper education, their brains are mush. THey aren't stupid, they just have never been challenged and grown and developed their brains. They can tell you about Global Warming, yet nothing about American History. They have been seriously ripped off by an educational system that has constantly lowered standards in order to get everyone passing the standardized tests.

To a large extent, kids these days are seriously lacking critical thinking skills. You want proof? Well, lets just watch the replies to this post and see how this gets moderated.

-joel

There's no contradiction...

[curunir (98273)]

Google is being entirely consistent. In one case, they argued that there should be more H1-Bs so that they can hire more qualified people. The other, came in response to questions from analysts that wanted to know why Google's net profits only increased $204m (to $925) while gross profits rose $1.41b to $3.87b. Quick math will show that the gross grew by a much larger percentage than the net. Analysts have gotten so used to Google thoroughly beating expectations that when their net results only met expectations, they wanted an explanation. Google gave it to them, saying that they hired lots of people. Nowhere did they say that they hired too many people or that they shouldn't have hired those people.

The two messages can be combined to give the message that Google wants to hire even more people which will hurt their numbers in the near term but lead to a healthier and more profitable company in the future. There's nothing inconsistent about that message.

They don't need more people for search.

[Animats (122034)]

Google's main search engine doesn't take that many people to implement, extend, and run. About 50-60 smart people really make Google search go. A few hundred more take care of the software systems that support search. It's not that big an operation.

Most of the new hires at Google aren't on the search engine technology side of the business. Take a look at Google's job openings. [google.com] Only a few of those jobs [google.com] are anywhere close to the guts of the search engines.

Believe Both

[PPH (736903)]

Google was unable to hire sufficient numbers of qualified (i.e. third world minimum wage) programmers. As a result, they were forced to employ overpaid local talent who spent most of their day posting snotty remarks on /.