![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
H1(b) Go Home!!
Seriously. There is no longer a "shortage" of "qualified" American tech workers. Massive numbers of qualified, current American workers are unemployed, costing the state money in UI benefits, losing their houses, becoming homeless, or working at Starbucks. All this while the high flying H1(b) people are still employed. This is just plain wrong.
I don't think there ever was a "shortage", frankly. Sure, people might not have met the hideous laundry lists that the companies "required". (Secret - neither did the H1(b) candidates that got hired, either, but the body shop/H1b pimps faked up their resumes!) But most of those people that are often turned down in favor of high-tech carpetbaggers have been older, with transferable skills and THE ABILITY TO LEARN. Really, even if you have the laundry list, you still have to learn that company's specific implementation and development system, so there's no time savings in hiring the H1(b).
So why not hire and train seasoned American workers? Oh, yeah, they want to be paid what they're worth. 10 years experience is really worth more than 2, people. Sure, you can get an H1(b) with under two years experience for cheap, rather than an overqualified, but not fitting the laundry list, American at a higher wage. But the American actually has a track record, and has just maybe (read probably) seen a similar situation before.
You ever wonder why MicroSoft and other companies have crappy software? Because they hire primarily RCGs and H1(b)s without any seasoning, and discard them when they have 4 years experience.
Seriously, people, we produce plenty of fine engineering talent right here. A little investment in keeping it current, and you avoid the overhead of H1(b), and are doing something for the country that gave you birth and the people that actually buy your products. Face it, if all of the American technocrats are reduced to working low wage service jobs or signing on the street corners (or eventually rioting), there won't be any around to buy your nifty new toys.
If I had my own company, I would hire only locally, and only hire citizens or green card holders. No "national" searches, no relocation, no immigration, no visas or visa sponsorship. I would hire as much for the ability to work with a team as I would for purely technical matchup. OK, so if they didn't know Java, I'd hire someone who knew C++ and send them to a Java class, or vice versa. If I wanted a php programmer and they knew perl, but fit with my team, I'd hire them and send them to a php class. Either way, I'd get the better long term employee, for a small investment.
But most of these quarterly profit driven, short sighted, idiots miss that.
I don't think there ever was a "shortage", frankly. Sure, people might not have met the hideous laundry lists that the companies "required". (Secret - neither did the H1(b) candidates that got hired, either, but the body shop/H1b pimps faked up their resumes!) But most of those people that are often turned down in favor of high-tech carpetbaggers have been older, with transferable skills and THE ABILITY TO LEARN. Really, even if you have the laundry list, you still have to learn that company's specific implementation and development system, so there's no time savings in hiring the H1(b).
So why not hire and train seasoned American workers? Oh, yeah, they want to be paid what they're worth. 10 years experience is really worth more than 2, people. Sure, you can get an H1(b) with under two years experience for cheap, rather than an overqualified, but not fitting the laundry list, American at a higher wage. But the American actually has a track record, and has just maybe (read probably) seen a similar situation before.
You ever wonder why MicroSoft and other companies have crappy software? Because they hire primarily RCGs and H1(b)s without any seasoning, and discard them when they have 4 years experience.
Seriously, people, we produce plenty of fine engineering talent right here. A little investment in keeping it current, and you avoid the overhead of H1(b), and are doing something for the country that gave you birth and the people that actually buy your products. Face it, if all of the American technocrats are reduced to working low wage service jobs or signing on the street corners (or eventually rioting), there won't be any around to buy your nifty new toys.
If I had my own company, I would hire only locally, and only hire citizens or green card holders. No "national" searches, no relocation, no immigration, no visas or visa sponsorship. I would hire as much for the ability to work with a team as I would for purely technical matchup. OK, so if they didn't know Java, I'd hire someone who knew C++ and send them to a Java class, or vice versa. If I wanted a php programmer and they knew perl, but fit with my team, I'd hire them and send them to a php class. Either way, I'd get the better long term employee, for a small investment.
But most of these quarterly profit driven, short sighted, idiots miss that.
no subject
I'm sure the other extreme, of letting absolutely everyone in who wants to work, would drag down our standard of living by a lot, but is that really just another way of saying that we are willing to let others outside the US live in abject poverty and suffering so that we can have our outrageously rich and decadent lifestyle?
(Anyway, I'm not trying to point out right or wrong of any viewpoint... I'm honestly interested in how you and others feel about protecting our interests vs. being good "citizens of the world")
no subject
Also, if we really want to be honest, a no borders world would see everyone in abject poverty, but with a just good enough standard of living to encourage people to breed more.
Letting everyone in will just drag us into disaster, with countries who do preserve their borders and limit their immigration to the verifiable "best and brightest" kicking our behinds in competition.
Also, there are plenty of people living here now that live in abject poverty (the homeless to start), and plenty of Americans that are "food insecure". Is it moral to add to this, just to demonstrate solidarity with the rest of the planet? Will it help them? Probably not.
I'm not against immigration, my ancestors immigrated here. I'm against giving a certain class of immigrants guaranteed but enslaving jobs at the expense of those already here, on flimsy (and patently false) pretexts and at lower wages, that only really serve short term corporate profits.
The classic American immigration story is that immigrants tend to take the jobs that citizens don't want. H1(b) turns that on its head, where the temporary immigrant takes the jobs that citizens and other permanent immigrants want, but for less money and less freedom - thus screwing the truly committed.
I support tech based immigration - do it like other countries do, and give them a real path to citizenship that doesn't involve screwing those that are already here and matriculating into our society.