Immigration Bill Passes the Senate, Includes More H-1B Visas 274
An anonymous reader writes "While the landmark immigration bill (full text PDF), which recently passed the U.S. Senate, is being hailed as bringing crucial reforms that will vastly improve the state of immigration in this country, there is a provision in it that is seeing relatively little discussion: section 4101, a 'market-based' increase in the amount of H-1B visas for skilled workers. 'The pitched arguments of both sides, which are likely to resurface in the House when it takes up its version of an immigration overhaul, cloud a complicated reality. There is little empirical evidence to suggest that foreign engineers displace American engineers as a whole. If anything, one recent study suggests, the growth of immigrant workers in American companies helps younger American technical workers — more of them are hired and at higher-paying jobs — but has no noticeable consequences, good or bad, on older workers.'"
Re:There are three kinds of lies. (Score:5, Interesting)
Precisely, I'm curious as to how they explain all the people that give up on the IT sector because they can't get a job due to the ridiculously narrow job requirements that even entry level positions have.
I'd be fine with a lift on the H-1B visa limits if it required them to actually demonstrate that they had made real efforts to hire Americans first. And that the requirements they were posting were reasonable for the job they were hiring for.
As it is, the job requirements seem more there to show that they're "trying" to hire Americans while ensuring that as few Americans as possible are actually qualified for the job.
OK, man, You got me ranting! (Score:3, Interesting)
CS is not IT and going to school for Computer science will give you skill gaps.
It has lot's of hands on stuff that is a good fit for an apprenticeships.
Ok, I posed the GP and it was meant to be satire.
You're right, Actually, back in the old days, college WASN'T for career training. It was for an education to better and refine oneself.
Engineer? You apprenticed or went to a TRADE school because engineering is a trade.
So is medicine.
Law? Read about the founding fathers. If they went to college, they would get some liberal arts degree and then apprentice with a lawyer and "read law" - no law school. See. Bio of John Q. Adams.
CS? I'm on the fence on that one. On one hand it's a branch of math on the other, let's face it, it's almost an engineering discipline - apprenticeship career.
Business school? Please! Apprentice.
And also, our colleges and universities have become High School prt 2.
Freshman English?! WTF is that? That shit should have been taught in high school! Same for Bio, Chem, Physics I&II.
It's a symptom of how our schools have failed and how corporate America has turned our education system into one big trade school to benefit them at tax payer's cost.
Re:There are three kinds of lies. (Score:2, Interesting)
I have friends who worked on H1Bs at plenty of Silicon Valley companies, where a lot of the workforce were not Americans. Their salaries were not that of slave workforce at all, but still allowed the companies to reduce cost a lot in their intial stages, then they grew and hired more Americans.
Americans have to understand that they are easily becoming too costly, with unheard of salaries anywhere else in the world, you are choking your own business, which would rather outsource or hire H1Bs than hiring you.
Re:Oh Sure. More Supply == More Demand (Score:4, Interesting)
"If anything, one recent study suggests, the growth of immigrant workers in American companies helps younger American technical workers"
Not only do I find that claim dubious, it's completely beside the point. At least one recent study discussed here on Slashdot, possibly more, said THEIR IS NO SHORTAGE of qualified technical workers in the United States. Some corporations just want more H1-Bs because they're cheaper.
Green Card (Score:5, Interesting)
If they still don't make it easier for people who go there LEGALLY to work to eventually get a green card (no tons of money, no company sponsorship or getting married, no years of waiting) then fuck it, it still isn't worth going there to work. I worked there for six years and moved back to Canada because it would have taken forever to get a green card and being indentured to a company for the duration. Fuck that. If they can give green cards to illegal immigrants and not those there legally, fuck them.
Most countries will give you a landed immigrant status (same as a green card) if you work there LEGALLY more than a set time (usually four or five years), keep your nose clean, and don't mooch off the government for anything. If that isn't the case, even though I get recruiters calling me from there regularly because of my good reputation in the city I worked in, I won't go back there to work ever. The odd vacation maybe but that's it. Not worth the stress of worrying about having to relocate your family out of the country within a month if the contract ends suddenly. Nor the stress of companies feeling like the fuck you because they think you are captive for the same reason. A big three letter telecom convinced me of all this because of the last statement.