Code.org: Give Us More H-1B Visas Or the Kids Get Hurt 271
theodp writes "Fresh off their wildly-hyped Hour of Code, Code.org headed to Washington last Thursday where H-1B visas were prescribed as the cure for U.S. kids' STEM ills. 'The availability of computer science to all kids is an issue that warrants immediate and aggressive action,' Code.org told Congress. "Comprehensive immigration reform efforts that tie H-1B visa fees to a new STEM education fund,' suggested Code.org co-founder Hadi Partovi, is 'among the policies that we feel can be changed to support the teaching and learning of more computer science in K-12 schools. We hope you can be allies in our endeavors on Capitol Hill.' Also testifying with Partovi was inventor and US FIRST founder Dean Kamen, who also pitched the benefits of H-1B visas (PDF). 'We strongly encourage Congress to pass legislation that directs H-1B visa fees to enable underserved inner-city and rural schools to participate in FIRST,' Kamen testified. 'Specifically, these fees should support efforts to enable underserved inner-city and rural schools to participate in FIRST.'"
Train the kids in valuable skills (Score:5, Insightful)
Like asking if you want fries, or how to fill out forms to receive government cheese.
Train what you have, fix what you have, rather than importing more of the problem. It's like selling a product at a loss, but making up the profit on volume.
Dean Kamen is a cool rich guy, and like most rich guys, can afford to advocate things that don't impact him.
Re:Train the kids in valuable skills (Score:5, Insightful)
Training them to get government cheese would probably be more useful than teaching them programming. At least then it wouldn't get their hopes up that there are actual jobs awaiting them at the end. It's my experience that most advertised IT jobs these days are just mirage jobs. They're posted for legal reasons and so that tech companies can run to Congress and say "Look at all these jobs we can't fill! We need more H1-B visas!" But if you actually waste your time trying to GET one of those jobs, you'll find that they're as fake and inaccessible as a closed movie set.
And even the jobs that ARE real have their wages kept artificially low by all the H1B's. And god help you trying to get anything these days in programming if you're over 35 (only hip kids can code, I guess).
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All so we can pour money into India, to keep the Chinese out.
Re:Train the kids in valuable skills (Score:5, Insightful)
these people need to be beaten with sticks (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, regarding these code.org people:
WHORES! FILTHY SYPHILITIC WHORES! Burning alive is too good for these people.
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If you're too old for the job then brush up on your Hindi and re-apply. But be ready to take a 60% pay cut, no vacation, and 80 hour work weeks.
but, but, racism and diversity is strength! (Score:3, Insightful)
get with the program--multiculturalism is COOL and if you are against mass immigration you are a bigot and probably the next Hitler.
The fact that multiculturalism and mass immigration makes millionaire investors richer is just a coincidence. Just keep saying that....Just keep saying that....Just keep saying that....
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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There are still bulwarks of coding being done here in the US. I just recently graduated with a CS degree and had no problem finding employment here in the states, with a family and grey hair.
I think the AC above, talking about 70 hour crunch times is closer to the mark. H1b visas means getting young Chinese and Indian employees for low-end salaried pay but who routinely work much longer days (as well as being well trained) than most typical US college grads. At least, that is what I see in the company th
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The Free Trade nonsense is a scam being perpetuated by the 1% class and sold to unsuspecting Economics students. It is pure snake oil however, for obvious reasons, it is a disaster. It is designed to enrich a few wealthy elites at the expense of the middle class in a race to the bottom that equalizes first world countries with third world countries. Basically, third world countries basically remain such while first world countries become third world economies, while a global wealthy elite becomes vastly wea
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Perhaps Python and JavaScript are not as valuable skill set as you think (they're not, try Java or (shudder) .Net) or perhaps you live somewhere crappy. But I am 42 and get to pick from multiple job offers in Denver.
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Perhaps your mistake was to not specialize or learn the right things?
I'm over 40 and have a PhD in computer science, with decent experience in databases and scientific computing. I'm still having an easy time getting work in the greater Boston area.
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I agree, but not exactly for the same reasons. Within big tech companies there's a disease. It's an ugly disease, and one that needs to be cured. It's called HR. Whenever we have an opening for new people within the company I work for, it's impossible to hire an honest american. Why? Because the recruiters in the HR department put the following requirements:
Expert in:
IP Engineering, C Programming, Java Programming, SQL, Unix Administration, Windows Administration, SS7, VoIP, etc, etc etc.
Also, require
Re: Train the kids in valuable skills (Score:3)
I put my resume on dice.com and got bombarded by phone calls for jobs the next day. In contrast, I've gotten very few responses for jobs that I applied. Apparently that is how job hunting works now. Publicly listed jobs get overwelmed so you need to get first dibs on a subset of the job market via a recruiter.
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Looks great from the ad, but the closer you get, the more you see it's not real.
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Exactly how does programmer or IT person get a job that requires minimum 2 years Win9 experence ? They can't so the company hires H1b and states no local talent.
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You exaggerate the requirement a bit because an impossible requirement like that will have high risk of being rejected. The way the requirement posted for a job is usually crafted directly from the person whom they are going to give a job to. So if the person took courses in X, Y, and Z, and has (even very little) experience in A and B, all of these A, B, X, Y, and Z will become parts of the requirement! It is very unlikely to find a person who has all of these requirement besides the person whom they have
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Dean Kamen is a cool rich guy, and like most rich guys, can afford to advocate things that don't impact him.
The term "limousine liberal" comes to mind.
Re:Train the kids in valuable skills (Score:4, Insightful)
Dean Kamen is a cool rich guy, and like most rich guys, can afford to advocate things that don't impact him.
The term "limousine liberal" comes to mind.
Because there is no catchy pejorative coined for right-wing billionaires pushing their own policy preferences?
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Because there is no catchy pejorative coined for right-wing billionaires pushing their own policy preferences?
Increased immigration ("immigration reform") is usually associated with the "liberals" in this country. The right-wingers are generally associated with anti-immigration sentiments.
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Hahahahahahaha, funny. So, that means that big business leans liberal??? Hahahahahahahaha
You're funny and your political bias is showing, and in this case, it's misdirected and pointless. H1B is all about firing US residents and citizens and ALL about importing cheap labor from countries where a salary of $20,000 per year is a king's ransom.
Re:Train the kids in valuable skills (Score:4, Informative)
Hahahahahahaha, funny. So, that means that big business leans liberal??? Hahahahahahahaha
No, it means that in America, there's not much difference between "liberal" and "conservative", esp. when you look at the politicians on both sides.
The Democrats push for "immigration reform" and lax policies because their constituents have been brainwashed into thinking unlimited immigration is a great thing somehow ("we need to reunite families!!!"), and push for this when they have power, but their real motivation is to help big corporations import cheap labor. The Republicans speak publicly against "immigration reform" to their constituents usually, because they're generally more anti-immigration, but then when they're in office they push for easier immigration and laxer policies, because their real motivation is to help big corporations import more cheap labor, but then they blame it on the Democrats. This of course is exactly what the Democrats do for other issues, where they do the same thing as the Republicans, to help their corporate masters, but then blame the Republicans for it. So we have two parties, doing mostly the same thing, and screwing over middle-class Americans, while keeping us distracted with a divide-and-conquer strategy so we won't vote for anyone outside these corrupt parties, because then "the wrong lizard may get in".
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Hahahahahahaha, funny. So, that means that big business leans liberal??? Hahahahahahahaha
On many issues, yes. Republicans are more pro-business on most issues, but Democrats are "better" on immigration, education funding, non-defense corporate welfare, and intellectual property (big media companies are big donors to the Dems).
ALL about importing cheap labor from countries where a salary of $20,000 per year is a king's ransom.
Once they are here, many of them will apply for permanent visas, and then citizenship, and then they will register to vote ... as Democrats.
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So, that means that big business leans liberal?
"Liberal" means very little. At the very least you have to distinguish between social and economic politics. Plenty of big business types, especially in places like Silicon Valley, are social liberals (gay marriage, etc.), but economics is another matter. Democrats are very good at pandering to this crowd in both aspects, and Republicans cater to their economic leanings. In other words, you're screwed. Real Democrats and moderate Republicans are, if not extinct, at least endangered species.
Re:Train the kids in valuable skills (Score:4, Insightful)
Increased immigration ("immigration reform") is usually associated with the "liberals" in this country. The right-wingers are generally associated with anti-immigration sentiments.
The right-wingers are generally opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens and also want stronger border enforcement, etc. When it comes to increasing the H-1B quota they, or at least their supposed representatives, are all for it. Look at the voting records. The Democrats aren't much different, which is why people get so screwed by the endless stream of H-1B's. This is a bipartisan screwing. Occasionally you get a decent politician like Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) who actually want at least some protections, but they're such a small minority it doesn't matter.
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The right wingers say they're opposed to amnesty and want stronger border protection, but when they're in power they don't actually follow through with it, because cheap farm labor is important to many of their big donors in the ag industry. Bush's track record on border protection wasn't very good.
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Billionaires pushing policies that benefit billionaires lacks irony.
"Limousine liberal" generally applies to a wealthy person pushing a putatively altruistic solution which imposes costs on those less able to bear them.
It's often associated with increased taxation. A limousine liberal may advocate for an increase in property taxes to help fund schools, a cost that they can easily bear but which is regressive on the rest of the population (while all the while sending their kids to private schools).
Other exa
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Absolutely true. H1B Visas are destroying tech job opportunities for American citizens and stealing our jobs. A flood of Indians who drives down wages and basically makes it next to impossible for Americans to easily find Tech work, discourages American students from going into this field. It costs significantly more for an American student to go to College, letting in Indians who went to third world schools who had to spend far less on their college undercuts American students.
While Liberals claim to be so
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We should abolish the H1B program rather.
They're not even trying... (Score:5, Insightful)
... to make sense anymore.
They might as well say "Wombat refuges must be funded so as to secure America's future in space exploration.
The whole thing is a non sequitur.
Visas have nothing what so ever to do with the academic success of American kids. Nothing.
Aliens could come bubble out of the 10th dimension and seal the US off in a pocket universe... and guess what... they could still get a decent education. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?! Because immigration has nothing to do with education. The US could be utterly isolated and yet have a fantastic education system.
Example? Look at Japan... notice how their education system is terrible because they don't have really permissive immigration policies.
Oh wait, their education system is great despite having pretty tight immigration.
Stupidity. Anyone that honestly gets suckered into such arguments should get the word "moron" tattooed on their forehead. Just for efficient identification.
Re:They're not even trying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's play EC101 for a second here:
1. Not enough students are persuing 'STEM' education.
2. Hypothesis: 'STEM' education needs to be improved, to improve retention and attraction and/or the rewards of pursuing 'STEM' education need to be more visible, greater, or both.
3. Ergo, we should issue more H-1B visas in order to lower the real wages for workers in 'STEM' fields and thus incentivize more students to study the (even if rewarding, quite challenging) 'STEM' subjects!
A non-sequitur would be downright sensible by comparison. At least disconnected statements tend to not be internally contradictory...
If you are having difficulty recruiting students for a subject, why would you possibly want to reduce the rewards for studying a subject? That's the opposite of what you want to do. Now, admittedly, some non-STEM students or STEM-abandoning students are motivated more by shitty teaching or other similar factors than they are by future job prospects; but unless you want to abandon basically all theories of human motivation underlying vaguely capitalist economies, you have to admit that expected payoff is sort of a major factor in whether to stick with hard math or go and do something else.
This one strikes me as similar to the (also surprisingly common and equally absurd; but self-interested) "We can't attract enough good talent, also wages are too high!" whining from employers. Hey, dumbass, supply curves, no? If you can't attract good talent, how can you also be paying too much? Unless your work environment is brutally fucked on various social levels, if you were overpaying, talent would be knocking down the door to come join you...
Re:They're not even trying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop reading Slashdot headlines.
It sounds like Code.org is pushing to have H-1B visa fees earmarked for education programs, rather than just going to general funds.
I skimmed through TFAs (poorly-organized as they were), and I didn't see anything implying they want more H-1Bs. Rather, the most I saw was implying that there could be an increase in H-1Bs, so it would make sense if that increase also increased STEM funding so we don't need H-1Bs in the future.
Re:They're not even trying... (Score:5, Informative)
From the link to Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC: "Modifications to the guest worker program must also include an increase in the number of H-1B visas". Many of Code.org's backers are also FWD.us backers.
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Can you settle this argument? Is the craptastically wrong headline your fault, or did Dice fuck it up for page views ?
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If H-1B visa fees are earmarked for education then more visas means more fees means more education. So yes it's implied that more H-1B visas would be better. For the children, of course.
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What?
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It's connected by the oft-used justification for hiring foreigners: the American workforce isn't qualified to meet the business needs.
The assumption is that if you're hiring a foreign tech worker, it's because the existing STEM programs didn't produce an American to fill your needs, so more funding should be sent to STEM programs to make better candidates in the future.
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I'm still trying to wrap my head around why STEM funding for kids in the US is even being uttered in the same sentence with H-1B visas?
Clearly you're hung up on things like "logic" and "reason". In order to understand politics you must abandon that obsession.
Re:They're not even trying... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your Congressional representative can always use a positive spin to sign something favorable to large campaign contributors.
For the children.
need apprenticeships and more trades schools forIT (Score:3)
apprenticeships and more put into trades schools will fix the education part and it can be done in less time that the older college system at a lower cost.
Re: They're not even trying... (Score:2)
Kamen et al think they have found a revenue stream in the fees collected from H1-B visas that could be used for additional funding of STEM programs. It has nothing to do with more permissive immigration policies being sold as a way to improve the education system (other than through money only).
Unfortunately, I expect the gov't to be losing money on the H1-Bs due to inefficiencies, but I don't know for sure.
Re:They're not even trying... (Score:4, Interesting)
This makes sense once you realize that it isn't about what they are claiming it is about. Tech businessmen want cheap labor - everyone here on slashdot gets that. But the other half is more about transferring wealth from the middle and upper middle class (in this case, through the lowered wages of developers, a moderately well paying profession in America) to the poor by providing funding for inner city schools.
We can't tax the rich since they have the ability to control their income, and the poor can't provide funding for their own schools or else they wouldn't be poor. So the funding for programs for the poor has to come from the middle class and those with high incomes in high cost of living areas who have relatively little wealth and therefore can be easily taxed either explicitly or implicitly.
Re:They're not even trying... (Score:5, Insightful)
....We can't tax the rich since they have the ability to control TAX POLICY...
There. Fixed that for you.
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Actually I had originally written something like "control their income and wield sufficient political power" but took out the part about political power because the ability to control their (US) income is so much more important. Even if tax law was changed that increased taxes on wealth, I doubt it would generate much revenue to pay for stuff because the truly rich have the ability to manipulate their income such that it still would avoid taxation. For example, they might move it to Swiss bank accounts, or
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Visas have nothing what so ever to do with the academic success of American kids. Nothing.
No, but they DO have something very much to do with your chances of getting a job when you leave academia, and the wages you're going to make.
Atlernate sources of funding (Score:5, Interesting)
TFS is not very clear, but if you read it closely (twice, in my case) it appears these guys are suggesting diverting the money collected from H1-B visa applications into "STEM" (how I hate that acronym) education for poor American kids. That makes a little bit more sense insofar as, if you stand on your head and squint, it looks like a token effort to tax immigration to pay for education in the US.
It's funny how everyone who makes his living on research or advocacy for a particular problem says the solution to that problem is to provide more funding for his organization. That is what TFS appears to be really saying - a bunch of people working on STEM education want more government funding for STEM education. Film at 11. ;-)
I don't know how much an H1-B visa fee is, but it must be less than the salary difference between an H1-B guest worker and the actual labor rate set by the domestic market. Otherwise no one would make money off H1-B workers and there would not be this constant clamor for more of them. This small amount of money, collected from a relatively small population of H1-B workers, will never be more than crumbs from the table anyway. It might be enough to fund a dog and pony show like FIRST, but not nearly enough to effect systemic change in the educational system.
In September 2013, the IEEE magazine ran a special series [ieee.org] on the STEM "crisis," and based on that, I am now convinced that crisis is nothing more nor less than wishful thinking that high-tech industries can someday, somehow get skilled workers for less than the fair market rate.
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Not particularly realistic. Every tax...er...."fee" is being glommed to band-aid the yawning budget deficit. Prying those funds away from the pork salesmen just isn't a realistic goal. Once fees/taxes pass through the US government's fiscal event horizon, it just disappears.
All because they don't want to pay people (Score:5, Insightful)
what they're worth. Flood the market with H1Bs, so they can tank the amount paid because then there is lots of competition. STEM education is there, the people are there, the (large) businesses simply don't want to pay them the $100k+ they deserve. They want a large pool of $20k/yr workers.
Re:All because they don't want to pay people (Score:4, Insightful)
and there's the rub... there are plenty of programers. The problem is, someone that's smart enough to code is also smart enough to do lots of other things that pay well. It doesn't matter how many coders they get in the market place, they're always going to be able to find a better job in management, accounting, engineering or whatever that pays twice what their employer wants to pay for coding. I'm sorry Microsoft/Apple, coding is not factory work. There's no way you're going to be able to pay minimum wage for this kind of talent.
Re:All because they don't want to pay people (Score:5, Interesting)
Also because they don't want to train people to work in technology. There is legitimately a shortage of tech people in the US, and one potential response would be to increase wages until the right candidates are motivated to apply, but another potential response would be to take not-quite-ideal candidates and provide the necessary on-the-job training that would make them suitable employees.
And I'm not even talking about being willing to hire Java guys to write C#, although that's in play too. For example, a guy who spent 15 years keeping an assembly-line humming and has been unemployed for 5 years now might well be somebody who could help keep a network cruising along. You'd have your senior-level network admin start him off as a cabling monkey, then teach him what he's plugging things into, and as he gained experience he'd eventually get familiar with the monitoring tools and be able to recognize and respond to common problems. This kind of hire might never reach the top-notch skillset of your senior network admin, but he could be an effective and inexpensive junior-level employee. You could pretty easily dream up similarly effective training programs for desktop support technicians.
These kind of programs were exactly what the major corporations were doing in the 1950's, because there was such a shortage of available workers after WWII that they would basically hire anybody with a high school diploma and no demonstrable idiocy, and then train them for whatever the corporation needed to them to do. They provided good wages, benefits, and a career track for people who did their jobs well. This was an investment, but it worked well, and you ended up with people who were fiercely loyal to the company and proud to be a part of it.
H1Bs are basically stopping those kind of market corrections from happening - they both prevent the IT guys from getting paid what they're worth, and prevent non-IT people who want to get into IT from making the move.
Wish I had mod points (Score:5, Informative)
This type of thing is so frustrating.
For example, I applied for a job recently that wanted 1-3 years of Linux admin experience. While I never had formal paid experience, I do have 15 years of:
Somehow, I don't know why they can't extract/find 1 year of experience in there. I can understand if they were asking for 5 or 10 years, but the bar seems low. In other words, what technical day to day tasks does someone in the job face, that I can't handle or figure out? Judge me on my actual technical merits, not something arbitrary.
Pay is not an issue either. Their top pay would represent something like a 40% increase from what I make now, which I do not expect to get. They list no floor. I would be estatic to get even a 5%-10% increase, but can understand that I may have to take the same money or a slight pay cut because of the experience factor (which is fine since I get by well on my current salary).
Of course, the job listing states the team is overwhelmed with work, but the job has been posted over a month. One would think they may have to re-adjust expectations in order to fill the job and get some relief.
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There is legitimately a shortage of tech people in the US
Evidence?
20K with 60-80 hours OT with no OT pay (Score:2)
I think pizza hut and others pay more for mangers with the same unpaid OT needs.
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The $100k+ they deserve? Were you born in the 80s? $200k programmer salaries came because there were no programmers. You don't deserve $100k+ you entitled bastard; everyone in the fucking world went to college to be a Web designer and now we can just hire one for a few shiny nickels.
Look up how guilds work. You know, medieval unions. They increase salaries by having skilled workers not work--less labor availability. We have the opposite: get everyone a college education so we can pay people less.
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Have you been involved in the hiring process for GOOG, MSFT, Facebook, or AAPL?
I have.
We (Microsoft) throw a LOT of money at people we're trying to bring on board. I have to assume our competitors are doing the same -- because we lose (and gain) talent from GOOG all the time as people move back and forth between companies.
If you make it through my interview loops, you won't have to worry about your starting salary being high enough. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you see your offer package.
remove healthcare from job and fix unpaid OT (Score:2)
TO many places use salaried pay to get lot's of OT work out of people with out paying for it as well use it or lose vacation policy that you can't use all of it due to the high work load. Or OT comp time goes to vacation but you don't get the time to use all up.
Re:All because they don't want to pay people (Score:4, Insightful)
If there are lots of people who want to do a job, for a low amount of money, maybe that's all the job is worth. What does it matter what country the people are from.
Tell you what. First let's eliminate all the immigration and "guest worker" restrictions on doctors, lawyers, accountants, and most importantly, small business people. Then we can get rid of region pricing, greater IP "protections" in the US than elsewhere, the restrictions on people directly importing pharmaceuticals (despite having US prescriptions and the drugs coming from the same plant that the US stuff comes from). There are a bunch of other things, but it might take me 5 or 10 minutes to think of them.
After all that is done we can talk about freely taking advantage of the "global village's" supply of STEM labor. Otherwise what you're saying is that you're willing to get screwed some more (thank you sir, may I have another) in the pursuit of some economic ideal that's preached to the peasants, while the politically powerful enjoy the fruits of protectionism.
There is no global village, and there won't be, at least in our lives (and our children's and our grandchildren's). It's a fantasy preached by those who stand to benefit economically, and their numerous sycophants, to people who stand to loose economically. If gazillionaires stand to benefit economically from "free trade" and labor mobility, they and their sycophants will talk about the global village and the virtues of "free trade". If they stand to benefit from keeping things in the US, or defense contracts, then they'll wrap themselves in the flag.
Analysis of another option... (Score:5, Insightful)
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That, or perhaps the jobs would just be outsourced to Indian contractors instead.
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Fuck off (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of coders in the country ready, willing and able to take these jobs. You're just too cheap to pay them what they're worth or willing to wait the three months it will take to get them up to speed.
Hauling in people from other countries who are no better than the ones here is just an excuse.
Again, you want the unemployment rate to decline? Hire people who are unemployed. They'll work harder and better for you than someone who has a job because they don't want to go back.
Oh, and Slashdot, the fuck off applies to you as well. Your interface just plain sucks and selecting 'Classic' doesn't do shit. Hmmm, maybe we do need more H-1B visas so you can read this site.
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I'm not sure you are in a position to make this claim.
I've been interviewing candidates for software engineering jobs since I was in college. I constantly talk to people I cannot hire because of raw smarts issues.
My current employer is paying obscene amounts of money to hires of all ages, but especially entry level positions.
The base comp package at my company has grown significantly during my career, often in response to market pressures. Furthermore, there are legally required flyers that post job title
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The attitudes! (Score:2, Insightful)
GP:
I constantly talk to people I cannot hire because of raw smarts issues.
Parent:
Guess what.. most people are idiots!
The attitudes! And people wonder why kids are reluctant to go into the field.
"Hey kids! You need to learn coding! You won't get jobs though because you are stupid! So, sign right up kids!"
See, if it were me - just lowly stupid-unintelligent me - I'd be creating a campaign to show HOW kids and current coders are coming up short.
Like, "Hey educators! The analytical skills are coming up short, so how about concentrating on that instead of the technology du jour?"
And if you are currently having probl
well start looking at people who don't have B.S an (Score:3)
well start looking at people who don't have B.S and other degrees. AS lot's of them are very theory based while the tech / trades schools are more hands on.
It's not just the SV billionaires. (Score:3)
I have always hated the comment about hitting the ground running. It is effectively impossible for anyone to do so since they don't know the internal structure and political climate of the company. At best they can make educated guesses but they don't truly know what they're getting into until they're working for a few weeks.
Any time an interviewer uses that phrase should send up warning signals to the interviewee that the company doesn't really know what they want and the job will not be what is advertise
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If you want someone to hit the ground running, hire from within.
You can also hire back people who had previously left your organization. I've done it before and the current position I'm in is back in an organization I'd left previously.
There may be some changes to absorb but people who come back do have the ability to actually hit the ground running.
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Say it, brother/sister!
For example, management often thinks a new developer can be instantly productive. S/he can't, because no matter how competent and experienced that developer is with the language and toolset, s/he doesn't know anything about the company's internal code library which is protected by trade secrets and NDAs and other dire consequences if anyone outside the company ever learns about it. And that internal knowledge is often more critical to the job than what the developer could possibly bri
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...we would have double the amount of coders and an increase in availability of coded products and software...
Woohoo, double the amount of shitty code!
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If I were an employer, why the hell should I pay someone $15k for three months of "getting up to speed", when I could bring in a guy from India who can start being productive now, because he's spent the last three months of his own time becoming an expert in the new up-and-coming buzzword technology this project will be using, while the American candidate was brushing up on his old COBOL skills, because he knows that will give him "job security" just as soon as he can find a job that needs it?
Two reasons:
Not many have the money/time/use case to buy a 48TB disk array just to play with or develop large scale software in order secure meaningful employment. Many of us play with tech on a much smaller scale. We may develop an app here or there or submit some simple patches for our favorite FLOSS project. No one I know are developing out of date skills. Part of the problem is that HR/Recruiters/Head hunters/Managers are pigeonholing people such that you must have paid experience doing the exact
My own proposal for fixing H1-B (Score:2)
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Holy journalistic spin, Batman! (Score:4, Informative)
So let me get this straight... Code.org wants to tie H-1B visa fees to education programs, and somehow that's twisted into the headline saying they want more H-1Bs?
It sounds more to me like they're saying "if you're going to bring in a foreign tech worker because Americans aren't good enough, you're going to pay for American STEM programs so Americans are good enough in the future". I can't really object to that idea.
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Use the smell test.
A major employer of nerds wants to import hordes of foreign nerds to work for less money than our local chaps during a prolonged dearth in the job market..
Re:Holy journalistic spin, Batman! (Score:4, Informative)
You are right, Kamen specifically didn't ask for more visas. Instead, he asked that the visa fees, at least in part, be directed to his program, FIRST. TL;DR: Give me money.
Partovi barely mentions visas, but also wants part of the fees to go to a new STEM education fund and wants changes to E-Rate (internet/telecomm to school libraries). He's got his fingers in a lot of pies, so skeptically I'm assuming one of them would benefit from unspecified E-Rate "changes".
Jona, a prof at Northwestern, basically wants more scientists to be involved in teaching STEM. No visa mention.
Cornwall, an ME, writes like an ME and doesn't mention visas; instead focuses on education.
So, yes, there's a lot of spin in the headline. Because headline.
Hire locally (Score:3)
If I had a nickel for every "consultants by the pound" pitch where they sent in just barely competent coders for me to review, I'd be a millionaire (all of the big subcontinent body shops are guilty of this). Then they've got the balls to pay these poor saps peanuts and attempt to bill me $100-200/hour (depending on how many hours they've spent in front of an Idiot's Guide to C## training video). Then you see all the even poorer saps who are going through 2 or 3 layers of additional consultancies before they make it to our HR dept's door. I feel bad for them, but...I'd rather just recruit at local universities and get people who have identifiable skills, already speak English that most folks can parse, and won't get rotated back to the subcontinent randomly as one or more of their handlers has "visa issues."
Talk to your local university with a decent Engineering or Comp Sci curriculum and start recruiting. Save time, money, aggravation, and help our own college grads get into the game. I refuse to even take calls from the body shops anymore even though my corporate overlords are trying to force the issue. It's just not worth the hassle.
Better yet... (Score:3)
Better yet, instead of redirecting H1-B fees to inner schools, reduce the number of STEM related H1-Bs. This should allow wages in these fields to increase and with increased wages there will be more people wanting to pursue careers in those fields. You would think a country based on capitalism would understand how supply and demand works.
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...a country based on capitalism...
Penny in the air...
35% (Score:5, Insightful)
35% of IT related graduates over the past three years have failed to find gainful employment in their field. It would seem difficult for a company to justify H1-B employees given that. The only logical conclusion is that H1-B visas are being used for some other purpose than a shortage of skilled workers. I would posit, as many others have, it is to keep costs low to maximize shareholder value.
I have a better plan. (Score:4, Insightful)
First, force companies to pay H-1B workers a lot more - unless they pay for training of an American for the entire duration that the H-1B worker works for them. Then, if the American they trained does not work for that same company at least as long as the training period, penalize the company the salary difference they saved. This forces the company to pay the American what they're worth, or lose a lot of money otherwise.
Makes as much sense as... (Score:2)
This makes about as much sense as when the Clinton administration opened trade with China [globalpolicy.org] by personally promising [dlc.org] reforms in Chinese government and an increase in Chinese demand for American cars and products, leading to an increase in manufacturing jobs. Yep, makes [economist.com] perfect [manufacturingnews.com] sense [epi.org].
Same 'ol 2-pronged attack on tech wages (Score:2)
More cheap foreign labor, and pulling the floor out from under the market by making basic coding a common skill. Then it won't pay any better than flipping burgers.
Backwards thinking (Score:2)
Waiting for the teachers' unions to start raising bloody hell about the impact to their livelihoods. Hmmm, given the clout they have with politicos
Direct contradiction (Score:2)
Just looking at it as a practical issue, if you reduce demand by bringing immigrants in to do the job (especially at sub-market rates), then the people here will have less incentive to learn those skills.
By eliminating short term demand spikes, you are reducing the long term supply of workers.
Abolish H-1B Visas (Score:2)
The problem with H-1B Visas is that they smell like indentured servitude. I say abolish them, and then create a visa program for skilled professionals that is not tied to a specific job or business sponsor. That way, the "guest worker" would have some actual bargening power and could change employers.
Hadi Partovi, Dean Kamen, Unconvincing Liars (Score:2)
Industry calculations (Score:2)
What a disaster. (Score:2)
The proposal is outrageous on its own; train kids for nonexistent jobs that have been outsourced to the lowest bidders.
The suggestion that H1Bs are enabling opportunities to foreigners by providing a path to immigration is equally offensive. The reality is that any individuals interested in immigrating are going to do so via the traditional means, and that's assuming they didn't come here to study first.
The vast majority of H1B applications are filed by outsourcing companies in an amusing twist of irony. Th
Green cards, not H-1B (Score:2)
I'm all for importing as many smart talented people as we can, but not as indentured servants, which is what H-1B is. Give them green cards and a path to citizenship and the freedom to change jobs.
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We should shun them, isolate them, and otherwise keep them away from real society. There's no hope for them.
You were a social worker, and your plan to fix society is to remove the undesirables? Why can't we all get along, social worker? Why? I'll tell you why: because you don't want people to get along.
I was an inner city American youth, and I was interested in programming, software, and computers. Social workers like you actively prevented me from working in IT because "you live in the inner city so you must be a thug."
Admit it, social worker. Social workers like you would be out of a job without thugs, wou
Re:This is already being done (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/25/where-u-s-stands-in-education-internationally-new-report/ [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-global-list-study-shows/ [cbsnews.com]
So even if they decide to throw a lot more funding for this STEM education it is unlikely to have any real impact.
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Re:Destroy-Your-Own-Economy (Score:5, Insightful)
Citizens have all these pesky rights to quit, ask for raises, etc. that you don't have to worry about when you're employing someone who knows they're going to get booted out of the country if they don't do exactly what you tell them to do.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
et me shed some light on this as a former H-1B visa holder.
Technically speaking, H-1B visa holders also have those pesky rights. In reality, it is like, some nice pesky rights you have there, it would be a shame if you have to walk through the immigration maze another time.
H-1B visa has no restriction on changing jobs. But you have to restart the process if you are in the applying the green card through the employment based channel. Another rub is that there is a quote system. (I am always wondering if this
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When I was in college in the early 90's, a lot of us would cut tobacco for local farmers during the summer. It was hard work, but it paid damn well for the time ($7/hr. in cash at a time when minimum wage was still $4.25). A few years later I went back and was talking to some old friends from the area and I asked them if they still cut during the summers. They told me that the farmers had started bringing in illegals for $4-$5 an hour, basically the same as minimum wage (by then up to over $5 an hour) and s