I hope they don't do that. If they do, then they are just bunch of morons because they want to punish legal immigrants and reward those who came illegally.
I agree with you that there is a problem that more Americans are going into law and business than into engineering but I don't think scrapping the H1B visas is the solution especially for IT. A lot of IT can be outsourced already so you will end up hurting US companies anyway if there isn't enough skilled IT workers here and or it gets more expensive. Also my impression of the engineering professions is that they already pay fairly well. Obviously there is more potential to earning more as a lawyer or getting an MBA but given that there are so many MBA's I don't know how many really do end up earning a lot or whether having more lawyers will end up depressing the incomes their also. I certainly think we need to develop more American engineers but I don't believe engaging in protectionist immigration practices is the way to do it.
Err no, H1B is for the open positions that are not filled by Americans. If there is no H1B, you either move the position out of the country or you artificially increase the cost of the labor. None of which is good for US. Indian sweat shops? Hardly. I have friends who used Indian/Chinese companies for outsourcing. Its no longer cheap to use a reputable Indian company that produces good results. Consider the time zone difference, I would say most companies here would prefer to hire good people here, especially the higher lever people. H1Bs are the type of immigrant you should want and encourage, not the illegal ones.
Actually, I think there is a limit on what kind of jobs you can take off-shore. That's why during the dot-com era, the salaries of engineers skyrocketed instead of moving off-shore. So I don't really buy that off-shoring argument. As I said, we should first fix the abuses of H1B before we are thinking about expanding it. Also, H1B was expanded to 85,000 from 65,000 a year already. The extra 20,000 are for people with US master or above degree.
If IT is really a fruitful career compare to other professions, then we should see more people doing a CS major. But the truth is that the number is declining year after year. I think this has to do with the agism in the IT industry. So even though IT workers were paid well initially, they don't have a long and stable career.
Do you have any experience working in IT industry? If you get rid of H1b, it just forces companies to ship more jobs overseas. They are not gonna hire back those old worker. A man over 40s with no management experience will have a hard time to find a IT job at any part of the world, not just in US.
Thus why would people want to study IT? Work until you are 40 then you get to flip burgers? No wonder there is a shortage or IT workers.
So you are assuming IT workers can't program after 40? It is more about the IT industry culture for this ageism than any practical reasons. I think if other types of engineers can continue to be engineers after 40s, there is no reason IT engineers can't do the same.
H1s are not limited to IT. When I was at Dell, we had a total of about 20 Reliability Engineers, 12 of which were on H1 visas. Those guys were damn talented, and some even had PhDs. Would you rather those guys work for an Asian firm like Acer or Fujitsu? No way. Now look at the semiconductor industry, where we need the world's smartest and brightest process engineers to meet the new challeges in nanotechnology and wafer fabrication techniques. Human capital is a huge asset to this country, and in order to stay ahead of the curve, we need to INCREASE the amount of H1Bs to maintain our competitive advantage.
Actually the people you mentioned were covered by the 20,000 extra H1Bs I think it is ok to expand this pool as oppose the normal pool that is being abused right now.
You probablly have little knowlege of business in this area. Engineers in other industry can continue to do their work over 40s, but in IT industry it is a little bit different. It is harder because you have to constantly update your knowledge and skillsets in order to stay competitive in this industry. 2-3 years is a lifetime for certain technologies in this field. You have to keep youself up to date. Unlike younger ppl, men in middle age have so many distractions in their life, they have a lot of things need to be taken care of. It become harder and harder to continue to learn new things and new skills. That is why we all try to move to management. Plus a 40+ year old programmer, DBA or developer can easily be replaced by younger ppl who can do the same work while getting paid far less money.
people who get engineering degrees in the u.s. are now moving into the financial industry and energy trading, etc. you can make substantially more money in these industries. that's part of the problem as growing home grown talent.
I am of the school that if you can program, then you can easily pick up a new computer language. I don't think what you said is the issue here. The IT culture simply favors the young. It is kind of like the i-banking industry favors working people 16 hours a day.
Much more than 20000 foreign students get their Masters or higher degree each year in USA, so it is not enough.
Would US forever attract the top talent from the rest of the world? What would happen if say 100 years from now top talent no longer want to come to the US (in the field of science, engineering, etc). I am sure Britian used to attract the top talent all over the world, but they do not any more correct?
your main point was the use of the word liberal shown by you doing this "liberal" if you had a problem with that word than quote him. my point was about socialism and freemarket
I am in favor of removing the limit for this type of people. This will also encourage people to pursue advanced degrees here which will be an economic boost for us as well.
