Cheap, Disposable Labor
May 26th, 2006 at 9:33 am by Susie
Funny, how many of the right-wingers I’ve known are from the IT world. Wonder how all those self-righteous, libertarian programmers are feeling, now that they don’t have jobs?
Thursday the Senate passed legislation that will increase the number of H-1B visas available for engineers and high-tech workers from 65,000 to 115,000, with an option of raising the cap an additional 20 percent every year.
Proponents of the legislation — the owners of high-tech companies such as Microsoft and Intel, or the subcontractors who supply such places with workers — say that because of the dearth of engineering students currently in college, there is a shortage of qualified candidates.
“The cap on H-1B visas has limited the high-tech industry’s ability to attract and retain the best and the brightest workers,” says Ginny Terzano, spokeswoman for Microsoft. “It’s vital Congress take steps to reform high-skilled immigration policies as soon as possible in order to ensure that the U.S. economy remain competitive.”
Bringing people into this country from places like India and China is better for the local economy than shipping jobs overseas, says Carl Camden, president of Kelly Services Inc., a Fortune 500 company based in Troy, Mich. “These people are on the books, highly taxed and a great boon to the communities they work in,” says Camden. “The pipeline isn’t full of Americans who have I.T. degrees.”
Just tell that to Mitch Besser. With a master’s degree in software design and development, 20 years experience, and a 4.0 GPA, Besser, 44, hasn’t been able to find full-time work since 2001. “If I can’t find work, something is up,” says Besser, who lives in suburban Portland, Ore., and has worked for places like Intel. He adds that in the past five years, most of his colleagues in the tech industry have left town or switched jobs. “I get infuriated when I hear that they can’t find people.”
In fact, unemployment is higher as a result of H-1B workers, according to a 2003 study for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Furthermore, between 2006 and 2011, new job creation in the computer and electronic products industry is expected to drop from 1.3 million to 1.1 million, according to economic data produced by Global Insight, a national economic forecasting system used by the government.
Heh. I remember during the tech crash all guns ‘n’ taxes libertarians who infested the local user group listserves suddenly started getting religion on unions as they got eliminated from over compensated (at the time) IT supports roles during cost cutting. Of course it’s a bit late after your employment is terminated.
How do you really feel about
programmersIT support peoplecomputers, Susan?Y’know, Mitch, if you’re still bragging about your GPA at age 44, your accomplishments in the second half of your life must not add up to much…
http://tinyurl.com/jcovx
richard’s been beating that drum (dead horse?) for awhile now.
(excuse the blog pimpin’)
I’m just proud that I was against outsourcing before it was cool to be against outsourcing.
Oh, and I was never a right-winger and I’ve always been IT…and yes, I have lost a job to outsourcing, but at least I was already on the anti-outsourcing bandwagon.
Hey, where did you guys come from? Great blog, glad to see more IT folks who wouldn’t sell their soul to Bill Gates.
If Harris Miller gets in the Senate (the former ITAA president who says he is a high tech executive) we are all doomed.
As long as people are pimping their blogs… http://techpol.blogspot.com
Hmmm…, and you’re not self-righteous?
I oppose importing well-educated H-1Bs to take jobs away from educated Americans. I also oppose importing uneducated foreign workers to take jobs away from poor Americans. Do you have any idea how many self-righteous left-wingers have dismissed me as racist for the latter, without feeling the slightest need to address my arguments, or come up with coherent arguments of their own? Believe me, neither side suffers from a shortage of self-righteousness!
I am right there with you on both counts. To me this is a jobs issue - people pulling the race card have no real argument to stand on so in desperation they cling to that.
We need to have a sane policy so that we don’t displace American workers.
I’m not opposed to immigration but there needs to be serious thought and control on the impact that it has on the American workforce. That includes both blue collar and white collar workers. It is safe to say that what we have today is total chaos.
As a Democratish
person (maybe moderate is a better word), I am annoyed with the far left who just need to hug someone, and the libertarians on the right who have bought into the notion that our borders and trade barriers should not exist under any circumstance. And then of course the corporate whores in both parties who think whatever is good for Bill Gates is good for America.
No, I am not self-righteous.