You have to understand that most workers who come here on a temporary visa actually intend to stay permanently. The numbers add up over time, plus the cap was at 195,000 per year for a time. Companies have also gotten around the cap by ignoring it. In at least one year, the cap was exceeded by as many as 15,000. Some companies are getting around the cap and other restrictions by using the L-1 and TN visas, which have no cap. I recently read about companies using the B-1 visa which I hadn't heard about previously. There's always something new. http://www.pcworld.com/article/223949/inside_infosyss_alleged_illegal_visa_practices.html
There are more honors students in India than there are kids in school in the entire U.S. This behavior is simply the rational outcome of current global demographics.
If I am correct Bill gates had said Indian software programmers are better than Americans programmers and he needs more Indians in Microsoft. Bill gates was also planning to start microsoft in India.
As a senior IT developer these are some of the things I witnessed myself over the last 2 years alone(very large firms): Last project I was the only American developer on site and the tech lead told me that they have 10 time more Indians working on the project from India. They were also getting great benefits. Interviewing candidates: A lot of unqualified candidates are submitted with stellar resumes and experience. Once you talk to them you realized they know s*** and their resumes are jammed packed with lies, usually following the same pattern. All Indians via Indian agencies. Previous project I was working for an large equity research group. They were already 25% through training and replacing their research analysts with Indians. Obviously it start at the button level but you can already see the trend. Ha... if we can only outsource our CEO's and politicians....
The only jobs that are protected from being outsourced to foreign workers are: Defense Contractors requiring Security Clearances: (US born only) Most professions requiring state licenses: Lawyers: (state licensing requirements... Unauthorized Practice of Law penalties) After these contracts are awarded to US based companies and licensed professionals.. they end up subcontracting and outsourcing the work to increase their profits. Our military is arming and outsourcing contractors overseas who hire locals billing at 2 to 3 times the payrate of our enlisted force. The foreign contractors are lucky to be paid 1/2 the going payrate with the company making a tidy profit. The biggest loophole are not H1 visas but E2 investor visas. A US based company making top secret military widgets can sell out to a Chinese company. The Chinese company carry out the contracts while using the E2 visa route to bring in Chinese workers replacing all US workers. It is ridiculously easy for corporations to change to foreign owners without any border restrictions. All of the benefits, tax breaks and incentives negotiated to keep US jobs transfers over to the foreign entity. GM / SAIC is a prime example... bail out + tax breaks to move operations and factories to china. Unfortunately the economics are too favorable not to move everything overseas. You get a team of 8 Software Engineers working 7x24 for the cost of 1 US engineer. Another Huge problem are the direct drop ship Chinese wholesalers: ie. cheerwholesale.com They sell merchandise from the same factories our licensees contract out at 1/10 our retail rates, bypassing all distribution and shipping essentially tax and duty free to US consumers. Apple does JIT China Direct fulfillment for their products very well. Ipod Touch personally engraved and shipped Fedex to your door in 2 days for $10. Ross Perot called it 1992... The Huge Sucking sound of Nafta.
I was replaced at one client with $6/hr Indian developers. It took them 4 weeks and a bunch of rounds of design changes and failed retests by the end users to complete a program I had designed and written in a day. Note that I said "them". They finally did get it to work in the 4th week by copying my code line for line. I never spoke to them or met them. It was all designated and handled by "corporate IT", and as in the cases above, was justified solely on the basis of "cost savings". Since then, I write systems for my own use, instead.
the owners of companies with English names does not necessarily mean they are owned by Americans. If they are public, then who knows?
If IT outsourcing is that common, how come a newbie SAP developer is making more than $100K in this recession? Something does not add up