Microsoft Calls For $5B Investment In U.S. Education 257
Dupple sends this quote from ComputerWorld:
"Congress should invest $5 billion in the country's education system — particularly in math, science and technology education — over the next 10 years and pay for it with increased fees on high-skill immigration, a Microsoft executive said. The U.S. needs to push more resources into science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education because technology companies are running into huge shortages of workers, said Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel and executive vice president. With most U.S. industries relying heavily on IT systems, other companies will soon start to see those worker shortages as well, unless the country focuses more on STEM education, he said during a speech at the Brookings Institution Thursday.'We need to do something new,' he said. 'We need to try something different.'"
Just a cheap H1-B visa scam, "for the kids" my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, normally I defend Bill Gates and MS, just because I feel *someone* should stand up against all the reflexive MS-bashing around here. But on this, I've got to call a spade a spade (and a scumbag ploy a scumbag ploy) and point out that this whole "it's for education" stageshow is nothing more than a cynical attempt on MS's part to get more H1-B visas (i.e. slavery licenses) so they can import cheap high-skilled labor rather than raise their salaries to hire U.S. workers. MS is basically pitching the idea of the government letting them buy a presumably unlimited number of H1-B visas (and even permanent green cards now too), and trying to cloak it with a bunch of "this will help the kids" education horseshit.
The whole H1-B visa program needs to be severely curtailed, NOT expanded. The idea of H1-B visas started out as a reasonable sounding idea. When we have critical shortages, we can give special visa exemptions for foreign workers. But, in practice in recent years, it's become nothing more than a way for big corps to skirt the free labor market and artificially suppress wages for skilled labor. You advertise a job at a ridiculously low wage, or with ridiculous requirements, and when no American worker responds or qualifies (because American programmers and engineers won't work for $30,000 a year and don't have 20+ years Java development experience), you run crying to Congress and the Labor Dept. that you need more H1-B visas to fill the "critical shortages of qualified workers." So then you can import foreigners willing to work for cheap, rather than raise wages to get American workers (who ARE out there, and ARE willing to work--just not for peanuts). And, to top it all off, you can cleverly skirt the "prevailing wage" provisions of the H1-B program by artificially keeping wages low, or defining the job so narrowly that there is no field to compare it to. Corporations for the win!
And, sadly, the whole scam has been backed (and consistently expanded) by both Republican and Democrats in this country--not surprisingly, since they're both just corporate subsidiaries at this point. And while people have been warning about abuses in the program [wikipedia.org] for years, their complaints are consistently lost in the rain of cash the big corps are dumping on Washington before every election.
In short, fuck you Microsoft. You're not fooling me (and hopefully not anyone else).
Everyone has it all wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Another bullshit whine (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that is not the issue. The issue is you, the employers, do not want to hire people above a certain age, people who might need a bit of training to get them up to speed or people you will have to pay what their skills are worth.
There are tons of people in the IT field, not just programming, who are either stuck where they're at or unemployed because of your deliberate actions to not hire them. Telling someone to upgrade their skills, which they do at their own expense, then be told, "Well, it's not EXACTLY what we're looking for", then whining you can't find anyone is the direct result of your actions.
You cannot expect every person you hire to have the EXACT experience you want, especially when you refuse to provide training. If all you want are experienced people but don't train anyone, then eventually you will run short/out of experienced people because no one was trained to replace them.
Start hiring people who are close to what you need, regardless of age, train them in the way YOU want them to be, and you your supposed shortage will magically disappear.
Re:Everyone has it all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Start paying engineers more than MBAs, and the problem will fix itself.
Re:Everyone has it all wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Everyone has it all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that those who are doing the hiring are likely MBAs themselves, you're not going to see that happen.
Straw Poll (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot seems to have its fair share of the sort of 'high skill STEM/IT/Tech' types that Mr. William H. Gates III is referring to a shortage of, so, I ask:
Is this a 'shortage' as in "Yup, damn headhunters won't stop calling and I'm turning down fairly attractive offers just for not being very attractive on a routine basis." or a 'shortage' as in "Cry, cry, we want CCNAs with a decade of experience to be begging when we offer them 30k/yr!"?
Corporate irresponsibility... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is absolutely no shortage of qualified workers. There is shortage of corporate responsibility.
With corporations already shed responsibility for retirement and education they are now trying to shed responsibility for on-job job-specific training.
As a veteran of a tech sector, I had to escape into consulting/regulation side exactly because of this phenomena.
You are expected to upgrade/maintain your qualifications without any kind of time/money allowance from the employer, but then most corporations would not promote from within, so you are stuck at the same wage level. Then when you finally leave to get your promotion they expect to hire someone with exact qualifications you had, never mind the fact that you left because they didn't pay you enough.
Culture of promoting from within and investing in on-job training has to come back. You can't expect to perpetually suppress wages, not invest into your workers and have people willing to do it. Eventually people figure out this is bad field to work in and jump the ship.
Re:Everyone has it all wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Also include teachers in this mix. If you want really good engineers to graduate from 5-year college programs, you need good math teachers in secondary schools. And the only way you're going to get good math teachers in secondary schools is to pay them enough so that it's a rational economic choice to go into teaching rather than engineering (or engineering stock trades).
Captialism only works for CEOs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just a cheap H1-B visa scam, "for the kids" my (Score:2, Insightful)
I worked at Microsoft from 2004-2005. From my experience, the level of knowledge required to pass the interview does not match the level required for the job. Interviewing at Microsoft is ridiculously hard. However once you get in, the work is so simple it's boring. They have people with Masters degrees in Computer Science writing simple automated tests that junior developers at other companies would write.
There's no reason Microsoft couldn't hire most of the people they interview. There's no reason Microsoft couldn't train the people they need. There's no reason Microsoft needs to fire 10% of their workforce EVERY YEAR. The problem with Microsoft? They have stupid business practices. And given the ridiculous amount of politics at the company, it's easier to lobby Congress than change their culture for the better.