<p>
[quote]
Even for civil engineering, I know some CAD detailing work and shop drawings are sent overseas to be done.
[/quote]
Funny I was gonna say that.
Worse, I know someone who sends some works overseas for a fraction of what it costs here. The only thing he needs to do is stamp & sign it.</p>
<p>How do you define"qualified engineers"？</p>
<p>The reasons for outsourcing and hiring h1-b workers are not necessarily the same.</p>
<p>Generally,outsourcing jobs are more likely to be lower level jobs while H1-B jobs are more sophisticated. And the cost to outsource jobs is much cheaper for companies;If you hire a H1-B worker,you will have to pay at least 60k or 50k I guess? But if you give the job to Indians who are in India,you can pay them 15k or less.</p>
<p>Solely based on the cost of labor,companies should outsource all the jobs to India instead of hiring a H1-B worker. But not all the jobs can be outsourced to low-wage countries,high-level positions still remain in the U.S. Essentially, every high-tech company is short of high-level workers. This explains why they are outsourcing and hiring H1-B workers at the same time.</p>
<p>By the way,high-level jobs cannot be easily outsourced. If India had enough people to do top-level engineering jobs, it would probably be the most advanced industrial-country in the world.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Worse, I know someone who sends some works overseas for a fraction of what it costs here. The only thing he needs to do is stamp & sign it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is going to come back and bite him. Here's hoping, for his sake, that he keeps a VERY close eye on the work that comes back, otherwise this guy's going to get sued when something goes wrong and he hasn't had any quality control in place.</p>
<p>This is not something that will become widespread because it is so risky to do, and, depending upon how closely the EOR watches the work, it even borders on being unethical.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How do you define "qualified engineers"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It is the Ballmers of the world who are trying to foist their own notion of what it means to be a qualified (software) engineer on the US Congress. I have made numerous arguments that there is at this time no consensus on what makes a (software) engineer qualified. There has never been any such consensus, as one can determine by reading Brooks' Mythical Man-Month, among other things. Unlike the medical field, where one must acquire a license to practice, there is no agreed-upon standard by which a (software) engineer's qualification is judged.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Solely based on the cost of labor,companies should outsource all the jobs to India instead of hiring a H1-B worker. But not all the jobs can be outsourced to low-wage countries,high-level positions still remain in the U.S. Essentially, every high-tech company is short of high-level workers. This explains why they are outsourcing and hiring H1-B workers at the same time.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I've never argued that all jobs are easily outsourced. I still maintain that any job can be outsourced, especially if the people currently doing the job train their recipients. I have experienced this personally. I was doing a high-level job.</p>
<p>The Ballmers of the world complain that they must outsource work if they can't raise (or eliminate) visa caps. As a result, there has been a drop in (software) engineers; there are numerous testimonies of people who've decided to pursue a different field that they feel is more secure. Some people pursue something else altogether such as healthcare. Basically, the Ballmers of the world can't have it both ways - they can't both argue that there are lots of jobs available to US citizens, while at the same time sending jobs to other countries and/or bringing people in on visas to do them.</p>