These people are exploitable. They cannot change jobs in America. So they have to in all the unpaid overtime and whatever extra work that the employer expect of them. Their indenture servitude is worth a bit to some employers.
Temping in the IT contracting world today is really a lot like slavery. You should see the huge fees the agencies command.
I am a US Citizen now but is a minority because most of my co-workers are H1 programmers. Do I like the fact that every day I have to compete with cheaper H1 labor? Hell No! But there is no alternative to this really, not a good one at least. The companies fight for survival the same way people do. Limit them and they either outsource or will not survive competition. Do not forget that the companies in China, India Russia would love to get the US Share of business. There is also a good reason why computer programming position occupied by foreign labor. American math and science elementary education is very poor. This is the time when human brain develop math abilities.
This americans are idiots shit is getting pathetic. Looked we kicked the worlds economic ass for years. We still have great schools and great institutions. (We also have a lot of idiots who sit in oprah and jerry springers audience) but if you think americans are idiots you are watching too much t.v. When it becomes apparent to americans they need engineering degrees, we will sit our asses down in the library and work as hard as anyone else. But I will tell you this most of the guys I know who have phds and masters degree recognize that engineers are under paid. If you think we are not smart - I have a few more trillion of cdos for you to swallow.
Not to sound like a typical whiner, but fact is the problem with engineers is that they are too smart and 'honest' to a fault. Just think about the pinto fiasco or Ford tires; engineers complain, and get backhanded by management to keep producing garbage, because at the end of the day, actuaries tell mgmt that it is net profitable and the courts will rule in corporation's favor. The Iacoccas of the world pocket the money and get rich, while the engineers get ulcers and stress. When the house of cards fall, engineers lose jobs, but Iacoccas get bailouts and golden parachutes. I know this all too well. Really doesn't matter whether the engineer is foreign or not, the results are the same across the board. People need to stop putting the blame on creed and gender, as it has no bearing whatsoever. Creating and supporting a system that is the antithesis of free markets, however, does.
The flood of H-1Bs has not stopped companies from outsourcing. And that is because American workers are so lazy and stupid that foreigners have to do our work for us, right? How about you, alexandert? You are a US citizen. Are you lazy and stupid? Does an H-1B have to do your job? If American companies with American workers cannot compete then we don't deserve a 1st world economy.
no arguments here. I note back in the 80s we were told we had a glut of engineers. I suspect that has something to do with the apparent lack of americans in the field today. Although I wonder if that is true. When I was in college - my school had a good engineering school. I knew a few very smart guys who started out as engineering students. All but one quit by the time they were seniors and went into the business school. They looked at how hard they were working to compete. They knew they could breeze through business school and get paid better. Basically the smart guys who had social skills did a cost benefit analysis. I suspect the same decisions are still being considered by students today. The brain power was until recently siphoned off to wall street and other jobs with easier cash potential. Now we will see what happens. Note: Someone recently posted here that some engineers get paid more to work for the government as regulators than they do in the private sector.
The big problem is that even top grads, Citizens, can't get jobs because their resumes appear on the pile with the resumes of thousands of H1-B's and assorted immigrants. Most of my EE/CS graduating class, of quite a few years ago, is now unemployed, and never was able to enter employment in the field. The devastation that H1-B has caused, to both domestic engineering talent, as well as to H1-B's themselves from India, has been enormous. H1-B's really ought to be back in their home countries, building them, and creating demand for American technology, goods, and services. Instead, they're all here, wrecking our economy, taking away the jobs from our top engineering grads, and destroying nearly everything in their path.
Once again, I think there is a problem laying the blame on them. This is exactly what those who enact the laws for their benefit want; shifting of misguided anger towards those who least deserve it. The best jobs should go to the best qualified-- period. The problem I have is not about sending them home, it is about removing the shackles of sponsorship and allowing them to roam about freely without fear of repercussions and deportation. It is this carefully conceived shackle that hurts everyone but the greedy lobbyists and politicians working with corporations to restrain free markets and lower wages everywhere but the top, who, btw, are typically compensated from boatloads of options, not salaries like those beneath them. I've known plenty of very sharp H1-Bs who have had the utmost fear of leaving or asking for a raise, because of the sponsorship requirements. How many engineers have experienced CEOs asking them to take 2 weeks of no pay for the good of the company, while the CEO benefits from the options boost; yet, makes no such sacrifice in terms of his own compensation?
Employers like H1-Bs because they are more exploitable. They cannot change jobs for many years. They cannot afford lose their jobs either. Any hospital that has large number of foreign nurses (compare to Americans) is a bad place to work. You don't want to go there as a patient either. The stress level of the staff is too high. IT - in boom times, there might had been real worker shortage. That is certainly not so now.