There are many Americans with masters degrees in engineering and computer science from our universities. Most are walking the streets looking for jobs. A majority of engineering jobs in the U.S. are being filled with cheap imported H1-B visa labor or being sent overseas. Welcome to the new tech economy.
True, but engineers face a bigger dilemma these days. If a recent engineering grad can't find a job in his or her field immediately after graduating, it will become increasingly difficult (near impossible) to find a job in their field when things finally do turn around. Nobody wants to hire an engineer who graduated two years ago when there's a glut of engineers who just recently graduated.
1) Stop H1Bs immediately 2) Stop giving OPTs to international students when they graduate 3) Stop tossing around green cards to 50K people around the world 4) Stop issuing citizenship to any baby born to a tourist or illegal. This is so common they even have tours set up for this. 5) Throw out all illegals back to their country. Let business owners hire real Americans Even the govt do all above it wil have a minimal effect on unemployment rate. But sill better than nothing
Please, spare us. First, comparing "masters" degrees is laughable: a masters from most Indian universities barely compares to 3rd-tire bachelor's degrees in the US; I can speak this with authority as I've worked with many indians, the most competent of which came from IIT. You should be thanking us for arpanet and riding our innovation coattails for the past 20 years.
All good suggestions. Also, WTF are we issuing student visas to foreigners to attend American community colleges? Issuing student visas to foreigners who are intelligent enough to attend a university immediately after secondary school is one thing. However, if they're coming here to attend a community college, I assume they're below par academically. The UK recently stopped allowing international students to attend their colleges. University only.
A year ago, I took a GMAT prep course at a local college. One of the Indian students next to me asked me to show him how to add and subtract fractions. I couldn't help but laugh. He had a business degree from Saurashtra University in Rajkot. But foreigners are so much smarter than us, lol.
There are only about 2,475,956 "real Americans" (American Indian and Alaska Native) http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/c2kbr01-15.pdf The effect on the unemployment rate will be much higher than you think. Great suggestion.
I think the H1Bs have stopped applying for U.S. jobs and large corps have stopped using H1Bs as it is easier now than every to hire local talent if you need it. The problem has moved. At a recent presentation I attended on outsourcing it showed the bundled cost of a senior developer in India, Viet Nam and China is about $20-$30k a year. Cost for a U.S. senior developer is about $200-$250. You can outsource a small project for the cost of 2 U.S. developers. Also, included with the bundled rate is desk, office and support. Reporting is as advanced as anything you can find in any high tech firm to monitor the work being done. Another problem. I was goofing off and programming some mobile game software a few months ago. I am not a 3D guy, I just wanted to get my game to work. I posted a description of my problem on www.elance.com and within hours I had bids from 4 different developers located all over the world. A Russian PhD (I believe) who understood exactly what I needed sent me the code and told me I explained the problem incorrectly. Total cost $50. I asked him to make some more changes and the total cost for my game engine was $160 on my credit card. Amazing. My point, worrying about H1B is very 1999. Offshore and net based contractors is a much bigger threat. Include this with Obama & Co wanting to make it very hard to hire employees and fund their health care and you are going to increase the speed at which projects go abroad. Going Offshore and using net contractors I have no health care costs or unemployment regulations to worry about. Software jobs other than pure innovation which the U.S. can continue to lead in are not going to come back (IMHO).
what i'm trying to learn in school, albeit impossible, is that when times are really good make sure you really cash in. then you can withstand times like this. grad school is just too darn expensive, and might head overseas to save money in a cheap country. no easy answers.
All these corporations lobby Washington each year for more H1-B visas. During their pitch to politicians they quote the words "free market" and "competitiveness" regularly. When someone comes to the U.S. on an H1-B visa they are locked into the employer and can not switch jobs. The employer can give poor pay and miserable working conditions, and the H1-B visa holder is stuck. There is a simple solution to this problem. Allow all H1-B visa holders to switch jobs and state that companies can't hold them financial responsible for "relocation" or other expenses. This would force the large companies to pay H1-B visa holders properly in terms of the U.S. labor market and provide decent working environments. Otherwise the visa holder would simply go down the road and work for a different company. This after all seems like a "free market" and "competitive" solution to the H1-B visa complaints.