American Employers Intentionally Screwing Scientists and Engineers

I couldn't get the above link to play, but I saw a segment on the local news about companies efforts to hire foreigners. It was the usual 'he said/she said' type of reporting. The company reps complained that there weren't enough computer and engineering experts in American and the one critic they interviewed said, no there are plenty of Americans who can do the job. But, of course, the reporter made no effort to verify either claim. It seems pretty easy for instance to get numbers of people graduating with computer or engineering degrees per year. Or to look at unemployment rates by industry.

Grrl,

Not just Bush is proposing more H1Bs.

http://www.plex86.org/computer_2/Hillary-Clinton-bowls-over-Indian-MPs-…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10443141

I think you should perhaps look to Obama, he seems to be the only leading Democrat not backing increasing H-1bs

I suspect that most of your political leaders are in bed with big business. Just as in the UK the politicians obey the people with money and are selling out the poor and attempting to destroy the middle classes.

Personally, I have come to suspect that it isn't so much scientists and engineers and programmers that the government doesn't like, as it is education. Having an education in physical reality and logical thinking doesn't exactly make people loyal to the current crop of politicians.

"Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army."
--Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)

"Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave."
--Henry Peter Brougham

Personally, I have come to suspect that it isn't so much scientists and engineers and programmers that the government doesn't like, as it is education. Having an education in physical reality and logical thinking doesn't exactly make people loyal to the current crop of politicians....Posted by: Luna_the_cat

Matches what I've seen with the school exams in the UK. Seems to be more politics and "correct thought" nowadays than actually learning how to think problems through.

Eliminating mathematicians, scientists & engineers would remove those whose success requires the most logical thinking.
I wonder what they think they'll do when they have to import all the skilled workers?

I know a couple of big companies who farmed out all their maintenance and now are trying to hire back skilled maintenance people as all they have now is theory and no knowledge of how to apply it. I must admit, I laughed when I found this out; not funny when it your country going that way though.

Well, scientists from India, China, etc. need those jobs a lot more than Americans do, so stop being so selfish. Bringing in foreign scientists is just a more cost-effective way of advancing the cause of science...and diversity too! Plus it helps reduce global income inequality. How can a self-proclaimed liberal possibly object to that?

"stop being so selfish" ??

scientists from other countries "need those jobs more than americans do?" ??

WTF?

when will you understand that this is NOT about who gets the jobs so much as it is about large corporations and even academic institutions pricing well-educated people out of jobs? increasing their already huge profits by selling their jobs to the cheapest workers, etc.? how long will it be before these low-wage employees cannot afford to buy all the trinkets that these corporations are producing because their employees' wages have stagnated or regressed? do you have any clue how many americans with PhDs in science and engineering are unemployed or underemployed? or are you hoping that america imports all its workers to serve rich americans, leaving all the rest of us to languish in unemployment, crime and poverty?

on the other hand, because you do not seem to understand this simple scenario, i think you must be trolling.

Well, scientists from India, China, etc. need those jobs a lot more than Americans do, so stop being so selfish. Bringing in foreign scientists is just a more cost-effective way of advancing the cause of science...and diversity too! ...Posted by: Bob

Well I'm not a liberal (neither in the British nor US sense of that word). I suspect that Grrl is.

How to you justify saying that Americans or Britons don't need the jobs? If I have the choice between having the job or letting someone else have it who should I pick?

You may be rich enough or in a trade not yet affected by H-1bs or imported cheap labour. When you are asked to sacrifice your job to give it to someone else or see an employer conspiring with politicians to gouge your salary then comment.

I actually live & work in the global workplace, no protections, it isn't pretty.

The other main point is that importing skills is only a short term solution at best for any country. The strength of a country lies in a well educated citizenry that isn't treated like dirt.

How many managers and/or directors treat themselves in the same way? No, for them incentivization is loadsa money & shares, not threats and intimidation.

I have to take issue with Dobbs', that clip is his usual sloppy and agenda driven dreck on this issue.

1. The number he shows for job creation in eng/tech industry is likely only net job creation, which is what is left after jobs that are liquidated are subtracted. It's not surprising that the net job turnover would be dwarfed by the amount of graduates in pertinent fields.

2. Related to the above, scarcity is a basic economic law that applies just as much to jobs as it does to goods. There are always more people looking for X than can actually get X.

3. As with most of these discussions, it overlooks the fact that employers aren't simply looking for "cheapness", they're looking for a suitable return on investment. Even if H1-B's can be hired for comparatively less, if the company can get higher price-productivity ratio from a native professional they would hire them.

4. It's pretty obvious that there is a problem with overproducing PhD.'s in this country, I doubt that would be eliminated even if we cut off VISA's completely.

5. He of course ignores the fact that foreign workers are not simply a one way, parasitic influence. Anyone who thinks that should look to Google, which has created countless jobs both directly and indirectly and was co-founded by Russian born Sergey Brin. Same for Yahoo, which was co-founded by Taiwan-native Jerry Yang. Entrepreneurship from foreigners can create jobs as well as occupy them.

Please don't fall for the sensationalism in this video. There are several details in the presentation that I would quibble with:

1. The video quotes 300,000 MSE graduates at the bachelor's level and above, but when was the last time bachelors' degree holders in the sciences and mathematics considered anything but borderline qualified to do the simplest tasks in R&D? I would want to know the breakdown of this figure by degree level.

2. How accurate the Dept. of Labor's (and others') projection of 120,000 new jobs will be? Does that also take into account the natural vacating of existing jobs by death and retirement? I would be surprised if they could forecast more accurately than by a factor of 2.

3. How statistically significant is the claim that the reports of H1B visa holders being paid less than US residents and citizens with similar qualifications? More importantly, do such studies control for the obvious fact of immigration through existing channels? H1B holders are much younger and have less experience than the *average* US worker taken over the entire spectrum of useful working years? Even with the current jump-through-the-hoops system, it is entirely possible for H1B holders to convert into green card holders through existing immigration channels such as the National Interest Waiver. Therefore a person starting out as H1B would only have that visa until he/she either becomes a green card holder or leaves the US.

Disclaimer: I represent the other side, as a foreign student with vested interest in getting one of those elusive H1Bs.

Oops, I hit Post instead of Preview. Please ignore the glaring language mistakes.

when will you understand that this is NOT about who gets the jobs so much as it is about large corporations and even academic institutions pricing well-educated people out of jobs?

I must have gotten that impression from "large corporations are hiring H1-Bs instead of American workers," which seemed to be the crux of your complaint. That doesn't sound like they're "pricing well-educated people out of jobs," (whatever that means,) just well-educated Americans.

do you have any clue how many americans with PhDs in science and engineering are unemployed or underemployed? or are you hoping that america imports all its workers to serve rich americans, leaving all the rest of us to languish in unemployment, crime and poverty?

Oh, please...you're not a migrant worker...to most of the world you ARE the rich. Imagine a Bangladeshi family making less than $1000/year who manage to send a kid through school, and he manages to land a "low-wage" job at Microsoft making 50 times that. He's "languishing" in a dream come true, and he'd think your comments reek of entitlement and privilege.

Look, I sympathize with your situation, and I hope you find a well-paying job in ornithology. But it's only because of those large corporations and their "huge profits" that there's any chance of that happening. It's a very rich country that can afford to regard studying birds as "work."

"The video quotes 300,000 MSE graduates at the bachelor's level and above, but when was the last time bachelors' degree holders in the sciences and mathematics considered anything but borderline qualified to do the simplest tasks in R&D?"

I didn't catch this, good work. CS grads at the BS/A level, for instance, usually go into lower level work than R&D. A lot of them are sysadmins, web devs and in other non-R&D related jobs. It really looks like a deliberately infalted figure.

As an aside, I didn't notice any "glaring language mistakes" in your post.

To add on to my list:

4. Does the figure of 300,000 graduates also include non-US residents? How many of these 300,000 are residents or citizens, and how many are students on F1 or J1 visas?

5. How are we to explain the fact that last year's H1B quota was totally oversubscribed by a factor of 2 in just *two* days? Can we solely attribute all of this to corporate greed? I find it extremely unlikely that this is the only reason.

Well, I am an H1Ber going through the green card process. No, I was never underpaid. Yes, I did hear of cases where greedy corporations abused the system. No, I've never seen any stats.

The abuse cases typically involve low-tier H1B'ers as highly qualified H1B'ers can and do move to better companies who are looking for better talent and are willing to pay.

Of course it is a real issue and needs to be fixed. However, I don't think it will be because I think the Department of Labor understands neither job descriptions nor candidate profiles well enough to conduct intelligent audits. I just hope that the number of these cases is low and both american and foreign workers find jobs at companies better than those sleazy bastards.

I want to agree with Bob on this one. Even if one accepts the argument that companies are sponsoring foreign workers because they will work for less, that doesn't mean that foreigners are taking "our" jobs. They're just willing to work for less. We Americans refuse to submit ourselves to true global competition. Companies are not paying foreign engineers and scientists minimum wage; they're still getting nice salaries. It may not be six figures, but it's still well above the poverty line.

When I was a kid in the 80's, I was in a family of four whose parents pulled in about $16,000/year. We were on food stamps and we didn't have a telephone or cable and I hated it at the time. But after serving in the Peace Corps for two years in West Africa, I learned that even then I was living a lifestyle orders of magnitude more luxurious than other hardworking, intelligent people who happened to be randomly born in the Third World instead of America.

The university graduates in the country in which I served had no real prospects in their own country, so I completely support making it easier for them to have a shot at "the good life" here in America. And if that means my salary expectation must be lowered in order to compete with them, then so be it.

That being said, in a more ideal world, it would be just desserts if we could also farm out CEO and VP positions to the third world. I mean, wouldn't it be great if the Board of Directors at Apple were to throw out Steve Jobs for his Indian equivalent willing to work for $100k/year?

What some of you seem to be saying is that you are happy to have your wages cut; your choice of course but don't drag me down just give your excess money to your neighbour.

But in respect of helping undeveloped countries, you've actually got it arse about face.

If you actually gave a monkeys about undeveloped countries and their living standards as well as the future well being of your own country, rather than your share dividends next month, you'ld be seeking ways to help those countries retain their skilled personnel and make productive use of them whilst improving the education and earnings of those within your own country.

I suspect a number of you have fallen for the big lies promulgated by the mega-corps.
I favour people rather than companies, and the hypocrisy & mendacity of the directors of most major companies is astonishing.

I really don't understand people who think that it is righteous to shaft their fellow citizens. I suspect that some of you have social-utilitarian sympathies and see people as commodities to be traded; or think that you'll be OK and a member of the elite (I'll give you a hint, you won't be unless you are a scion of an already wealthy/powerful family).

"Well, scientists from India, China, etc. need those jobs a lot more than Americans do, so stop being so selfish."

Really, Bob? I don't need to pay for the food I eat, or the roof over my head? Who knew? Oh, by the by, should I ever come down with a serious illness and need medical care, will that be free too, or should I just be a good sport about it, hurry up and die, preferably with a minimum of backtalk? I wouldn't want to be a bother.

GrrrlScientist, you speak of months or years of unemployment or underemployment. Try decades, because that is what those left outside of the Old Boys' Club and unserved by affirmative action have been asked to accept, many of us having been left with no choice in that matter for quite some time. Discrimination against the "overqualified" is no joke in this country; one is denied the freedom to even settle for a low skilled position. Having been denied the freedom to begin one's career, one is then denied the freedom to do much of anything else, indefinitely.

Other than, of course, enjoy the joys of homelessness until one's little piece of housing project hell opens up.