US Senators Question Indian Firms Over H-1Bs 415
xzvf sends us a link to a BusinessWeek report on the campaign of two US senators to get answers to how H-1B work visas are actually being used. Yesterday Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter (PDF) to nine Indian outsourcing firms that, among them, snapped up 30% of the H-1B visas issued last year. The senators want to know, among other things, whether the H-1B program is being used to enable the offshoring of American jobs. "Critics say outsourcing firms, including Infosys Technologies and Wipro, are using the visas to replace US employees with foreign workers, often cycling overseas staff through US training programs before sending them back into jobs at home."
Yes... (Score:3, Insightful)
H-1B visas are a boon for employers. They not just have the power of a job, but the power to send people packing back to their homeland, so of course, H-1B people end up very docile shills, as they have a lot to lose.
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Legitimate H1B - not from the contractor sweat shops are not taking any jobs aways. Tried hiring anybody decent recently?
The non-intuitive solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes... (Score:0, Insightful)
H-1Bs are just a way to get cheap foreign labor without having to worry about such things as paying for Social Security. Plus, you can send them back to their country at any time, so you can demand far harsher conditions of work from them than any American (outside of undocumented workers) would take.
People who go H-1B have not looked very far for the expertise they need. They are just looking for cheap labor, nothing else.
Could We Train Away Their Accents? (Score:4, Insightful)
Gosh, that PDF was slightly embarrassing. (Score:1, Insightful)
It helps when questioning whether we really need to import skilled technology workers, if you can make certain that you actually have some working for you to begin with.
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Needs more benefit to Americans (Score:1, Insightful)
Even better, how about understanding how this brain drain thing is supposed to work, and replace H1B's for skilled workers with permanent residencies, rather than shipping trained people back to their home?
Wow; I see why u remain A.C. (Score:5, Insightful)
My experience as an employer and former H1B worker (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately due to the H1-B quota being hit on the first day, only two of our three H1-B applications were accepted. This doesn't help anyone, it means that the remaining person has to work remotely for at least a year (and therefore their taxes go to a foreign government), and its a PITA for us and them. Who wins here?
Frankly, any US software engineer that is having trouble finding a job in this economic environment should look in the mirror to see what their likely problem is, rather than trying to blame the H1-B visa program.
Re:The US is the big loser in this abuse (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The non-intuitive solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of complaining that foreigners take American jobs, you (not you personally but "you" as in the US) got to ask yourself, where the US would be today, if it wasn't for the immigrants. Not every foreigner is an idiot, just like not every American is the best choice for a certain job. Some immigrants will fail miserably and others will succeed and maybe even start their own, successful business and create new, American jobs. Those who fail will be replaced, be it by Americans or new immigrants.
Btw. US companies exploit workers from other countries as well and take jobs from others. I don't want to know how many companies have been bought by US based businesses and then closed down, since the only interest the US companies had, were the product portfolios and the customer base. So why should Indian companies care about US jobs, if the US couldn't care less about other peoples jobs?
What the US must never forget is that they need the rest of the world just as much as the rest of the world needs the US.
Re:Yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Could We Train Away Their Accents? (Score:3, Insightful)
I demand that morari gets +5 and "Insightful".
Get off your stupid socio-moralistic high-horse. Just because you point out a problem with a group of people doesn't make you any sort of ist. Racist, sexist, nationalist... nor, is it truthfully a bad thing; for if the thoughts of others really bother you that much, a psychologist can help you and if not, there's the psychiatrist and shock therapy.
Indians do NOT speak English well enough for ANY kind of phone support. This isn't an American grudge, but as I understand it, it's pretty much International as German companies, Russian companies, French companies also attempt to outsource helpdesk to a hand full of Indians.
It is truth, it is real, and I don't care what you label me as. I'm pointing it out, and slamming it in your face.
Re:Wow; I see why u remain A.C. (Score:4, Insightful)
At anyrate, anyone who thinks that passing exams equates with being the best in the field is sadly mistaken. Usually, being good at your work is a product of having studied, which coincidentally leads to decent marks. But I've seen a fair number of straight A students who couldn't [or wouldn't] venture off on their own to do something that wasn't programmed into them.
Tom
Re:The non-intuitive solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually you can already see this trend in many (if not most) universities. Just go to any of the graduate programs around the nation and you will see that the vast majority of students are foreign students. Many of them stay and pursue teaching or research positions. That is why an ever increasing number of faculty are European, Indian or Chinese (at least in the sciences and engineering). The academic world requires a certain personality to succeed -- one that seems unappealing compared to the glitzy lifestyle of Silicon Valley IPOs.
The GP's idea of the counter-intuitive notion of encouraging immigration to help the economy is nothing new. That's what America has been doing ever since it was founded. It's a pity that the xenophobic elements always dismiss any possibility that the Irish, Germans, Chinese, or any other immigration wave, could ever bring any good to outweight the short-term negative impact they may force upon our established way of life. For a modern example of where this open borders policy is working, Business Week has an article on how open immigration policy has propelled Spain as the best-performing major economy in Europe.
Link: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_21 /b4035066.htm?chan=search [businessweek.com]
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there are advantages to hiring developers from the same culture as the intended customer market. Because intellectual property laws in third world countries are a joke. Because for some work, particularly defense work, it is actually illegal to use foreign developers. Because even though managers are happy hiring workers from overseas, those same managers don't want to move to the third world themselves, and there are certain advantages to having your development staff close to management and marketing instead of half a world away.
Most of the work that could go overseas is already overseas because it is so much cheaper. The jobs that are now left in the US is work that is harder or impossible to ship overseas. We can decide to fill those positions with US workers or foreign workers. If we decide to fill the jobs with foreign workers, then we are training our future foreign competition while telling US college students not to enter CS or IT. If we decide to fill the jobs with US workers, then we are going to keep high-paying jobs here in the US while telling US college students that they will have a bright future in either CS or IT.
Look in the mirror.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to bitch when you're losing out, but look at the bugger picture. Why should highly paid tech workers feel they should have protection yet are willing to let factory workers get screwed so that they can enjoy low-cost products?
Why this years visas were filled in one day (Score:5, Insightful)
On a positive note though, over 100,000 visa holders are going home this year, and another 100,000+ in each of the next two years.
There were 190,000 visas issued in each of the years 2001, 2002, 2003, before the limit went back down to 65,000. THIS is the single reason why all of the H1-B visas were used up in one single day.
300,000+ H1-Bs is a VERY significant number of the IT unemployed. So this might look good, unless Congress changes things.
Unfortunately, Congress is debating RIGHT NOW on increasing this limit. The current proposals are to bump the number back up to 195,000; either directly, or indirectly through a new quota system.
If you don't want to repeat the years after the dot-com bust, you need to fax or write (preferrably not email) your representatives in Congress RIGHT NOW. That means this week. Otherwise, there's a very good chance that this limit will change upwards, as there's a lot of money driving the issue.
Also, the people driving the lobbying efforts have stated that if they don't get this passed this year, it won't get changed next year, as that's a major election year.
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not nearly as "simple" as you might think. It's fairly trivial to start sending business to a foreign subsidiary. So, we ban that. What's to stop the company from then having an "affiliate" company that gets 95% royalties on whatever they sell. Ok, ban that too. Companies can then "license" their technology to a foreign company cheaply, and operate the other company instead. Or, they can enter into business deals with the foreign company that cost a great deal of money, allowing them to funnel the money in the company to the foreign one. Finally, they have the option of just closing up shop, and when approached about business, say "we're not in business; however, we recommend the services of [foreign company] instead".
Legislating away all the ways one can move overseas would require such stringent legislation that nobody would want to do business here at all. It would take laws regulating (among other things) who you could do business with, require certain profit margins on all deals, impose requirements regarding ownership of multiple companies (remember that stocks convey ownership), regulate who you could recommend for services, and a number of other things which would greatly increase the size of government, decrease freedom for individuals and companies, cost a lot of money, and make the US a (even more) difficult place to do business.
I run a business in the United States, and I would like to continue to do so. We have a Hungarian engineer, not because he's cheap (he's not - he makes more than me), but because there isn't anyone better at what he does that we know of. We outsource to India on occasion because of the simple fact that for some jobs, we cannot compete at American wages. Which is better for America - an American company, paying American taxes, and hiring a few Indians as needed, or an Indian Company, paying Indian taxes, hiring only Indians?
If America started to take the steps to make it impossible to (effectively) move business overseas, regardless of the collateral damage, I would move. America is no longer the "shining beacon of liberty" it once was - we willingly, gladly trade real liberty for imagined security. Don't believe me? How is a Metal Detector going to stop a suicide bomber with some dynamite, a fuse, and a book of matches? George Bush has done more harm to this country's freedoms than any other person in history, congress and the police ignore the constitution at every occasion, we're turning into a police state, and we lose more life waiting in the airport security line every year than was lost on 9/11.
We squander money like it's going out of style, and our economy is doomed [housingdoom.com]. Housing prices are way overinflated, we have no savings, and the FDIC doesn't have enough cash to make more than a token gesture at fixing things when the inevitable crash happens.
So, if this country is so bad, why don't I leave? Well, it's (at the moment) a favorable environment for business, and I have family here. I also think that it may be possible to save our freedoms, and that an economic crash may help wake people up, and will be good in the long run (affordable housing, smaller government from lack of funding, etc.). So I stay, run my business, and work to make the country a better place. Take away my business, or threaten it, and I will lose much of my reason for staying. Companies aren't the only ones who can move.
Re:The non-intuitive solution (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to say the US will loose if I myself leave (you don't know me to judge if it is the case), but I am sure there are many talented people out there in such a situation.
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you miss how the whole deal works and why the parent makes such a bold claim. If you're willing to pay people what they are worth finding good people is not hard to do. That is the problem, they don't want to spend the money to make money so they take whatever shortcut they can despite the problems it brings. Especially in IT its very important not to have a lot of turnover as implementations are usually company specific. I've never seen two companies deploy their infrastructures in the same way. That means even talented people will take at least a little time to become familiar enough to properly take over a network. Turnover is a huge problem. The higher ups at my company used to just burn out every IT guy they came across until they met me, then they decide it was best to give me more money, open the wallet to get some quality equipment and now things are running smooth in a high redundant environment administered by myself.
I learn more and more about the business the longer I'm here and the more I learn the more I can do to help. I've more than made up my salary and equipment costs in other cost savings. That's the way at least in my opinion IT should work in a company. I got lucky of course as it was a combination of timing as well as skill.
Regardless, I've hired help that was inexperienced, we pay them competitively and teach them the environment and now I don't have to worry about help-desk work. It's simple, keep them around, problems will go away assuming you didn't hire an idiot which has happened to me in the past as well.
Their should definitely be more protections for H1B workers though, they should not have to live in fear anymore than an American should. Perhaps a complaint system could be created that would be government controller ensuring that the companies they work for would not know. If enough complaints are filed an investigation could then be triggered. This is much the same way sexual harassment works for ADP. Employees of member companies can file a complaint to them and they will start a 3rd party independent investigation. It prevents a lot of abuses of power.
Re:The US is the big loser in this abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
I was talking with a recruiter the other week who worked in as a recruiter in the area I was moving too for a couple of years. About 3 years companies started demanding Java programming skills, however there were not a lot of Java programmers in the area, and the ones that were there only had 1 or 2 years of experience. The companies said, "not enough experience" so those potential Java programmers moved out of the area.
Fast forward to today, the recruiter said there is a huge demand for, you guessed it, Java programmers with 3 to 5 years of experience. He could not find anyone to fill these positions. Why? Because these same companies were unwilling to hire anyone with little experience and let them grow into a position.
I hate it when companies complain that they cannot find anyone. Somehow they expect IT people to appear out of thin air with 3 to 5 years of experience. If there is a shortage of technical workers and skill sets how about these companies,
It boils down to money with companies being too cheap. Is it any real surprise that they cannot get effective IT?
Make immigration easier (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm amazed no one's said it yet (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not judging anyone by myself.
If you offered a million dollars a day for someone to do the job you can't fill, do you think you could find a qualified applicant? I sure do, and I don't care what position it is, what sector, what country. You will find plenty of qualified applicants willing to move to you and do the job for a million dollars a day.
So the real problem you have is not "nobody is qualified and willing to apply for this job", it is that you can't get someone for what you're offering to pay them. Or you're not communicating with the qualified applicants.
Re:Yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
I overheard an older businessman talking at lunch with a friend of his about the absurdity of these practices. The goal really is just to suppress wages, and it is undertaken in a series of discrete steps:
Ignorance and arrogance ... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's the "We got to the moon first, so we must be better" argument. But that ignores the fact that 99.9% of engineers in the USA had nothing to do with that.
Re:How about... (Score:1, Insightful)
why not just charge... lets say... something like... 25-50k/year/person for a H1B "license" from the government... companies could get all the foreign workers they need (the only cap is their wallet. not some arbitrary 65,000 number) and US workers are gauranteed that it won't be abused... the funds would help close the federal deficit, or could even be earmarked for job re-training programs for displaced workers.
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing as an "undocumented worker." We already have a phrase for that, and it's "illegal alien." These people are, by definition, not Americans. They are breaking the law, and as such, deserve capture, deportation, and probably they deserve some form of punishment to discourage future criminal activity. I have many friends and colleagues who are foreign-born or foreign-nationals who are here legally, and they endure a certain degree of expense and trouble to maintain their legal status because the benefits are worthwhile. Illegal aliens do not deserve your respect, protection or support. The mechanisms to permit a legal presence are easy to understand and readily available. There is no excuse.
To one degree or another, I agree with almost everything else you have posted. H1B has essentially destroyed an entire job market.
Re:happy this is happenning (Score:5, Insightful)
This is insightful.
This isn't.
I work at an IT consultancy firm (not Indian; it is headquartered in Seattle, if you're tracking all this), and am based out of Singapore. I am required to, at times, fly in and out of some neighbouring countries at a very short notice. Now travelling in South East Asia (even for Indian passport-holders) is outrageously simple; you pack your bags, show up at the airport, fly in to, say, Bangkok or Hong Kong, and... that's it. All visas are processed on-arrival, you can stay for a month, and then fly out. It's a similar thing in Europe as well; the Schengen area covers some 17-odd countries, and it's very very easy to travel across countries in these globalized times.
For a variety of reasons (911, huge immigration numbers etc), US is not one of those countries where you can slip in and out quickly. While Wipro etc applying for H1-B's en masse is definitely a loophole, I'd still argue that they're doing it for a very valid reason; it is important for professionals to travel across the world without too much hassle.
This isn't really a problem with IT alone; any profession where you charge by the hour ('man-hours') suffers from the same problem. Consultant work is more time-bound, than delivery-based, for very good reasons.
I think you've had a bit of an expectations mismatch. IT consultancy was never about using the best and brightest technology out there; it's about understanding a customer's requirements, both said and unsaid, and about thinking what's the best thing the customers shouldn't do. In that sense, contemporary IT consultancy is closer to M&O from, say, 1980's, than it is to, say, implementing AJAX in that intranet application for that big-shot bank. You really shouldn't be expecting an Accenture or an IBM Global Services or HP Consulting to be in the forefront of technology development, because that is not their job.
Yes, Bangalore isn't a 'valley'; it's a plateau that's 1000m above sea-level, so calling it a Silicon Valley isn't really correct. Besides, very few of the companies in Bangalore use silicon chips the way the first wave of tech companies in the San Jose- Sunnyvale area did. So in that sense, you're right; extremely misleading to call Bangalore a valley, much less a silicon valley at that.
However, don't, for a moment, presume that there is no product-development (as opposed to project development, which is what TCS/Wipro/etc specialize in) going on in India. As I see it, that's the next big wave in Indian IT, and for the same reason that starting-up in the (real) Silicon Valley makes sense; proximity to potential customers, closer cultural ties and so on. In any case, Bangalore, I think, is in a much better position than of the other cities in the East are, both in terms of access to talent and markets. Much worse than starting-up in Fresno, if you will, but despite increasing land-prices and a rickety infrastructure, still better than Manila or Ho Chi Minh City.
Now, it would definitely have helped if our universities had that startup-ambience that American universities have, and for sure, it'd have been greatly beneficial if we were able to retain at least _some_ of that graduate population leaving the shores, but yeah, we're getting there.
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
The law is littered with unintended outcomes:
- The income tax deduction for interest paid on home mortgages actually drives up the rate the market will bear, making it more expensive for non-itemizers to borrow than it otherwise would be. The mortgage interest deduction was intended to promote home ownership by making it cheaper, but for the majority of people (who do not itemize) it makes it more expensive.
- It's illegal to hire undocumented workers. These laws are intended to protect domestic workers, but they actually create a black market of undocumented labor that can't negotiate fair wages for fear of being deported, which undercuts the prices domestic labor would theoretically command.
- Making drugs illegal was intended, in theory, to marginalize their use by making them too expensive or risky. Instead, pot is our #1 cash crop and the funding source of choice for organized crime.
- We subsidize farmers to make food plentiful and cheap. They then sell their (cheap) crops on the world market, putting farmers around the world out of work. The farmers go to cities to compete for manufacturing jobs, producing cheap manufactured goods for import back into the US at rates cheaper than US workers can compete with, putting US manufacturers out of work.
- We also subsidize farmers to protect their way of life. This attracts corporations who compete for the tax subsidies and benefits available to farmers, crowding family farmers out of the business.
I might go so far as to speculate that the ratio of unintended consequences to intended ones for any given law is postive. Doubly so if the law tries to thwart economic reality.This is the problem : (Score:3, Insightful)
it seems to me that new generation i.t. workers in the u.s. have expected the initially skyrocketing pay rates of the early 70s and 80s to be valid for their own generations too, DESPITE the increasing supply of i.t. workers from WITHIN the united states. hence, their wage expectancy have remained high, instead of adjusting to the high supply situation, disproportionate with their qualifications.
hence when an american company seeks someone for a position from within the u.s., they find candidates that demand much in contrast of their qualification and position in question. hence, they try to import someone from abroad who would accept more reasonable payrate for that position, leading to complaints that "not enough skilled workers" and "employers not willing to pay enough" complaints at the same time.
lets face it - we are not in 70s, or 80s anymore, and even not in 90s.
whence do i know - we are having EXACTLY the same issue here in turkey, but in ALL fields of engineering, sciences and such.
at early 80s, and 90s, there was a huge need for people in any technical field. countless new universities, technical schools and the like were founded at all levels, and the capacities of the existing ones were increased.
people who enrolled in these thought that the wave would ride the same years later. it has not came to pass like that - now there are zillions of qualified workers in all fields, but there are not enough jobs to give them. hence, we have an inflation of skilled workers here, which leads to drastic drops in wages and still high unemployment.
downside is, in a free market, one shouldnt decide on past. one should envision future - hence when enrolling in a program one should think how is it gonna be 10 years later, not how it is today. noone gave guarantees to those enrolling in colleges that they would be guaranteed the wages and positions they wanted, and noone has to do it either. in a free market, you invest and get your ROI or do not get it.
Re:Yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
I overheard an older businessman talking at lunch with a friend of his about the absurdity of these practices. The goal really is just to suppress wages, and it is undertaken in a series of discrete steps:
* 1. Downsize US workers.
* 2. Hire foreigners.
* 2 1/2. Get paid millions for "cutting costs".
* 3. Discover foreigners can't do the job.
* 4. Hire back US workers for less money/benefits
Slight revision
* 1. Downsize US workers.
* 2. Hire foreigners.
* 2 1/2. Get paid millions for "cutting costs".
* 3. Discover foreigners can't do the job.
* 4. Hire back US workers for triple their old salary as contractors
* 5. Diminish the economic power of the US
* 6. Witness a greatly diminished US dollar and waning international influence
* 7. become the new jersey of northern hemi-sphere
Re:Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's like calling a drug dealer an Unlicensed Pharmacist
All sillyness aside, take a look at this:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0420/p03s01-usec.ht
about programmer Michael Emmons, who worked for Siemens ICN in Florida.
The company imported Indian workers to sit at the fired American's former desks, and do their jobs.
Not as employees, but as contract employees hired through an Indian agency.
The agency paid their salaries back in India, they made no money in the US, but were paid "expenses" which were then tax free.
So here you have people living here in the US, using our roads, sewage system, police services, etc.
Paying no taxes whatsoever since they made no money here. The company had to pay no social security or medicare taxes as they did for their American workers. They saved a bundle, even if the salary were the same (but I'm sure it's not).
That's a distortion of the way the system is supposed to work. Outrageous.
Re:Yes... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yes... (Score:2, Insightful)
I like maddox's take on this. (Score:1, Insightful)
Get some balls people. If you're too chicken shit and you can't cut it, then maybe it's you who doesn't deserve to live in America.
I think I agree. There'd be fewer illegal aliens if the US would just let the people work here legally. It's not really so bad that they're stealing someone's shitty wal-mart job away from them, and at some point, they'll quickly see that $6 an hour goes nowhere and want more money anyways. Unlike people born here, they don't suck the life out of the country for 18 years while they get "edumacated" for free. They come here with hands ready to work right now.
Think of this: All those factory jobs the US lost to Mexico, China, etc might have stayed if you let more immigrants in. If those factories stayed you'd have a lot more people in the US with better jobs, because you can't have unskilled labour throughout the factory, quite a few skilled trades people, managers, marketers, salesmen, etc have to exist there as well. Those are good, solid, well paying jobs you let another country steal from you in the name of slowing the tide of immigration.
Nuts, I say, absolutely nuts.
Thank God I live in Canada where almost everyone is an immigrant. Immigrants are what made Canada the great country it is. And we have a lot more services for these people to "leech" from than the US, including such modern wonders as free health care and real, honest to god, welfare.
Re:Yes... (Score:1, Insightful)
Total lies. Its the opposite because H1B workers pay all FICA taxes and end up never actually getting any returns since most of them return to their home countries eventually. When was the last time an Indian in India or Chinese in China cashed out a US social security/medicare check? No wonder US Americans (like you) surviving on their hard-earned money have so little gratitude towards these people. Get a life...
Re:Yes... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's fun to read any message written by any american which claims that those pesky foreigners are all incompetent and "stealing" american jobs. That's pure ignorance right there, not to mention that the USA as a country was built by immigrants for immigrants. Unless you tell me you are all native americans, right?.
More to the point, the US education system is shyte. It is worthless. It doesn't educate anyone and it is extremely expensive. Well, unless we are talking about the post-graduate levels. The fun thing is that the ones doing the teaching are basically non-americans which were imported through the big brain pumping scheme. Yep, maybe they are stealing jobs from americans too but as they are paid as much if not more than their american counterparts and outperform them in research work, scientific skills and overall knowledge, that isn't exactly stealing, right? It's more in the line of hiring the competent candidate instead of the incompetent.
So, to sum things up, the americans don't get a half-decent education from kindergarden up to masters, find themselves graduating but still incompetent, find themselves being replaced by better skilled, sharper foreign professionals and then have the nerve to bitch about how the bad foreigners who speak in english with a funny accent (not to mention a couple other languages, mind you) and do not do their work right?
Pu-lease. If you were half-competent to begin with your job wouldn't be in jeopardy, let alone in danger of getting outsourced.
Oh and by the way, your H-1Bs are using their stay in the US to get professional experience so that they can return to their home land and develop their company there. That's how India's tech industry formed and that's why they are rapidly reaching and outperforming the US in the tech center.
Deal with it. In a few years the only job you will be able to get is working in a fast food joint. Owned by a foreigner. Dumb americans.
Re:I like maddox's take on this. (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't HARD to come here legally. But you do have to pay taxes and do other things that make working here less compelling -- and for the rest of us, it sucks to face a job market where you're competing with somebody that can accept lower wages simply because they're not paying taxes, social security, insurance, and all those other things the rest of us have no choice but to pay.
It's far more complex than you make it out to be.