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What do you expect to learn from the growth rate? Going by the projections for BME:
Total job openings (2010-20) = 13,100
-> average annual job openings = 1,310</p>
<p>Sounds like there are plenty of graduates. BME is a tiny field; that magnifies growth rates.</p>
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<p>Nope. They want that foreign worker who will come here and work at IT jobs for $26/hour, living 4 people to an apartment and sharing one car. Staying at work until all kinds of crazy hours so they can interact with the even cheaper offshore resources off shore. When I would leave my job at around 6 pm, our “onshore offshore” workforce would all be stopping in at the coffee shop, just getting revved up to stay at work until midnight so they would able to work with the team in the far away time zone. It is a pile of garbage to say that those workers have skills that American workers don’t. I worked with a lot of them, and they have no more technical skills than any of the US workers on our team. In most cases they had less, especially when they first arrived. And some skills like as root cause analysis of problems never seemed to develop even when they had learned the technical ins and outs. Don’t be fooled for a minute that they are hiring for skills not available in the American marketplace. They just don’t want to pay American wages.</p>
<p>A simple reform to H-1B: change it so that the people on the H-1B visas can easily change jobs, so that they are not “indentured” to the sponsoring employer. That should drive away the employers that are looking for cheaper labor that is “indentured” to them, allowing it to revert to its stated purpose, which is to allow top end talent to enter and work here. Employers would only bother with the visa sponsoring process for top end talent that they would have to pay well in order to keep them from going elsewhere.</p>
<p>^once you have an H-1, anyone else can give you an H-1. The quota no longer applies.</p>
<p>The quota may not apply, but doesn’t the process and expense on the part of the next employer apply as it is now? That process and expense may make it difficult for current H-1B visa holders to change jobs, creating the situation where they are “indentured” to their current employers (that may pay them worse than normal market rates, etc.).</p>
<p>I don’t believe the expense is an issue. Once one files for the new H-1, they can start working right away for the new employer. </p>
<p>This policy exists to prevent lower salaries being locked in and let the market forces dictate the wages.</p>
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<p>About as much as smoking impacts the lungs… </p>
<p>Both US workers (25%) and US companies (75%) are responsible for what has happened up to this point, tho. A lot of US workers, once they reach their comfort zone (40-50) may be reluctant to get into new technologies that are in demand. Since training is a four letter word in many companies the outcome is predictable. Now, keep in mind that this is the ‘party line’ meaning US employers will try to blame the entire outsourcing issue on ‘cannot find qualified workers’. In practice, it’s not quite this straightforward.</p>
<p>US workers are basically seen as canon fodder, and offshore workers as the answer from heaven. Neither is the case, but in the perception war, that’s what it is.</p>
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<p>That is currently the law of the land. H-1B’s are about as good as green cards since 2000 thanks to AC21 and about as hard to obtain :). Most offshore employers have figured it out and use (or abuse) training and business visas (L1 or B1) for people doing real work here…</p>
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<p>There appears to be $4,000 in fees plus legal costs to transfer an H-1B employee (which appears to be similar to the cost of the initial issuance of the H-1B visa). Wouldn’t that be a deterrent against hiring one away from another employer, so that the H-1B employee who is underpaid or otherwise dissatisfied at the current employer has fewer choices to seek alternative jobs?</p>
<p>Perhaps making the initial cost to issue an H-1B visa higher, but making the transfer cost much lower, would make it work better in deterring employers from bringing in H-1B employees other than the top end ones whom they will pay well (to keep them from walking off to other employers).</p>
<p>The fees are being tacked on because Government wants to make some money. 4000 is hardly a deterrent and most lawyers charge less than 1000 unless there are major companies paying for it. Some even file their own papers.</p>
<p>I really have little faith that our politicians will enact reforms to reduce the abuse of worker visas or restore authentic competition in the American labor market. Like others have said, it’s about the money. If business lobbyists can continue to convince Congress to maintain VISA programs to import low wage employees, then that will continue to be the order of the day. I’ve NEVER believed that there was an actual shortage of American intellectual talent and skills in STEM. That’s why when I hear any politician talk about how the U.S. will fall behind economically because we lack a sufficient number of skilled immigrants, I think ‘what nonsense’ and ‘how dishonest.’</p>
<p>I’m reading this thread with great interest, because DD is about to graduate with a Master’s in a specialized branch of micro biology, and is currently sending out resumes. (One interview set up, for next week.) </p>
<p>So far, she’s reporting no shortage of job LISTINGS in the three major East Coast urban areas she’s targeting. It remains to be seen whether any of these turn into job OFFERS.</p>
<p>The H-1B debate is likely of little or no relevance to biology majors, due to the ample supply of biology graduates each year relative to the smaller number of jobs for them.</p>
<p>Usually Engineering/CS areas work with a masters for H-1s but hard sciences require a PhD for anyone to consider sponsoring a work visa. </p>
<p>Most of the science ones are given out by Universities for post docs and faculty positions.</p>
<p>Some additional notes from someone who, well, did not exactly arrive on the Mayflower… I’ve written about this in the past…</p>
<p>In the dark ages (early-mid 80’s) there really was a ‘shortage’ as the tech industry of the time took off. H1 was a temporary visa from F1 (student) to Green Card. Processing time was under a year from most countries, maybe 2 years for India (nobody from China back then). The quota was quite low, 30,000 rings a bell for 3rd preference, a grad degree was derigeur, and based on the LCA paperwork we were getting paid ongoing wages. </p>
<p>There were a few contract houses doing the ‘4-H1s-in-a-2-bedroom-apartment-and-rusted-out-car’ routine, especially when I was living in Detroit in the mid 80’s. But we got the cream of the crop, nearly all my Indian coworkers at the time were IIT’s. </p>
<p>The first job cuts started happening in the coasts (east and west), for different reasons; east coast was when the ‘old guard’ companies went away (Digital, etc) and west coast when the defense industry had cuts following the '89 Berlin Wall etc). The GC quota was raised, and more H1’s came in, this time from more ‘mainstream’ schools (not just IIT’s). </p>
<p>The 90’s brought a lot more people as the quotas were further relaxed and more H1’s came in (nearly 200k people a year by the late 90’s). By then we were getting a lot of regional college grads who all had up-to-date experience (as the poster in misc.jobs.misc lamented, “exactly how many C++ developers does the Municipal Water Company of {insert city} employs”… </p>
<p>Up to that point layoffs in the US were not huge - there were jobs (on the way to the outsourcing office) and one could play the game quite well. Mrs. Turbo milked the late 90’s for all they were worth…But it was getting harder and harder, as relatively few US developers (compared to offshore) had solid experience in the n-tier architecture, .NET, ASP, blah blah. Plus there were enough management and glorified offshore handholding positions to go around so nobody noticed jobs were really beginning to disappear. Also, telecom between here and there was not all that great…</p>
<p>The floodgates opened during the dot com boom and Y2K and beyond, and that was all she wrote. There were massive job losses after 2000, and in my view, some seriously unqualified offshore resources job hopping every six months. In 2003 or 2004 the caps reverted to some really low numbers, and of course more creative visas were used (L1, B1…) </p>
<p>Give me 1985 level candidates and 2003 level H1 quotas (200k) and I have no problem. The IIT’ians I worked alongside with were nearly all geniuses… But there’s a big leap of faith - to put it mildly - between the grads we were getting then vs what we’re getting now, and that’s the whole crux of the H1 argument.</p>
<p>After reading this thread, now I understand how Smoot-Hawley was passed in 1930.</p>