Out of curiosity, do H1 visa workers here in the U.S. pay federal, state and social security taxes to the U.S. or do they pay taxes on their income to their home country?
.. and what the incentive to have "qualified" educated workers anyway? So, if I get an engineering degree and I have to compete with foreign wages, why would I go through all that to make $25k a year or whatever they can pay someone overseas? During the dotcom bubble, even tho it was fake demand, people were jumping into Computer Engineering because of the sky high wages. Its supply and demand. CEO's complain that there aren't enough skilled workers, but if they raised what they paid them there would be. There aren't enough skill workers willing to work at the wages they are paying.
What has happened, basically, is that companies have opted for lower productivity and more hands - overseas hands - rather than higher productivity and fewer hands, but in the US. This lowers wages, which lowers the number of people wanting to get into comp sci or related fields. After all, if you're a math wizard, would you want to go into a field where you're treated like a dog and paid similarly, and then have to spend all your time wondering when your job is going to disappear, which is what happens to programmers these days, or learn structured finance and get treated royally and paid well? The answer is obvious.
Just out of curiosity, what specific skills would you say these graduates are lacking? Any correlation to the tier of school they're from, or is it across the board?
Listen up ! I don't disagree with you on this, but if you think THEY are bad, just check out some of the young Americans in HEALTHCARE. Omigosh, TOTAL IDIOTS, but guess what ? They're all working, all PROSPERING. This is much different than engineer and information technology graduates. Ask yourself why ? Hint: check the historical stock prices for Infosys, Tata Consultancy, and WiPro and read this: www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/11/business/indsoft.php
In that case considering what he's doing, then there is good upside... ...at least his job won't get outsourced
Curious as well; are we talking not qualified in the sense of skills they have vs. skills you are looking for for the job(s), or are they lacking serious people/general skills... Not surprised either way on the "ton" of resumes...it's a given nowadays in any relatively major business, regardless of the pay.
You'd be AMAZED at how many YEARS you can drag out the paperwork on an H1b person, LOL. One guy that came in 1989 or 1990 didn't get a permanent visa till 1998 which meant there was no way he could leave the company (and therefore wasn't able to negotiate effectively for better pay) until he got papers. Were there Americans that could have filled the job? Sure, but they weren't willing to do it 24/7 for $35k. $50k was the lowest any of them would have considered, and those were the ones that I didn't think highly of. To get one of the better ones would have taken $75k. The moral of the story is that you can find an American if the position pays a reasonable wage, but you can get an indentured H1b servant for 1/2 the price if you are willing to play the paper games with the INS.