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<p>The unemployment rate in my state is 5.7%. That’s most likely a lot better than it was in the 30s.</p>
<p>The unemployment rate in Australia is 5.1% and that’s with a lot of new people entering the job market. It isn’t doom and gloom everywhere.</p>
<p>Homer, to be honest, only mediocre people should worry about employment market. The cream of the crop will always find the best jobs.</p>
<p>Homer, have you known anyone who lived through the 1930s?? I’m guessing not. My grandfather had a master’s degree and had to survive by selling eggs door to door. It was NOTHING like today. Don’t embarrass yourself by making ridiculous statements.</p>
<p>Homer, let me know when you get a level 1 job.</p>
<p>Homer, you sound like a bitter unemployed engineer. For starters, you obviously have too much time on your hands. Secondly, you have an extremely strong motivation to identify a conspiracy so as to avoid having to hold yourself responsible for the situation you find yourself in. </p>
<p>Take some advice from the kind posters on this board: the same thing that makes you annoying to them is probably the same thing that makes past and potential employers unlikely to want to hire you. </p>
<p>While there may be some truth to your perspective, your obsession and bitterness is not helping you get a job. And the bias towards foreigners can not solely explain why you can’t get a job but most American engineers can.</p>
<p>Homer is not an engineer. He switched major according to him. He graduated.</p>
<p>Homer has gone from “devil’s advocate” to misinformation spewing pariah. I love it.</p>
<p>So if H1B Visa engieners are the best and brightest, then why are they only making $36k a year at some places?</p>
<p>“Outsourcing firms say they pay their L-1 workers wages comparable to what American workers earn. But Tata acknowledges that when it took over a project at Siemens Information and Communication Networks in Lake Mary, Fla., it paid some programmers only $36,000 a year – below the average local range of $37, 794 to $69,638 for a basic programmer (determined by Department of Labor surveys) and far below the $98,000 that one U.S. programmer there said she was paid.”</p>
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<p>And as in most cases involving US workers being replaced by foreigners, the US worker has to train their H1B visa replacement in order to get severance pay. So if the H1B Visa engineers are truly the best and brightest, they don’t need to be trained.</p>
<p>“Some of those employees were outraged that they could be replaced by foreigners. It especially stung that they were asked to train Tata’s workers before they left, a procedure that Tata calls knowledge transfer.”</p>
<p>[Visa’s</a> use provokes opposition by techies / L-1 regarded as threat to workers](<a href=“S Visas For Aliens Assisting Law Enforcement -”>http://www.visalaw.com/news/sfc5262003.htm)</p>
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<p>Strawman.</p>
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<p>My former H1 coworker bought a $450K home a few years ago and is putting his first son through full-pay private, has two cars and generally lives the American dream. His wife is a stay-at-home mom. I work with many such people that have had more, less or similar economic success. I know one lady from Venezuela (she’s Indian though) that I worked with married to someone from India and I’d guess that they pull down close to $200K/year. They have a $550K home and two kids and nice vehicles, etc.</p>
<p>One guy that I work closely with has a Phd and he’s a technical manager. He built a million dollar home about ten years ago. His wife is a medical doctor and makes a lot more than he does. They own homes in other countries too.</p>
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<p>There are more cogs, wheels, and levers going on than one hiring US manager hiring one foreigner with a H1B visa. and there are more being effected that one voice in the wilderness, Homer128 (and we shall be led by… Homer123).</p>
<p>When I was cut as a computer programmer at a FOrtune 100 insurance firm, I was cut with FLOORS of US workers AS FLOORS of Indian workers from TATA or whatever were being added. It was that patent and brazen of an abuse. Our company was dealing with a firm. It was more than one manager and one worker.</p>
<p>And talking to my contacts in other places, this behavior is quite typical. My insurance company is not daring-do sort; just following the pack and getting away with what everyone else is doing.</p>
<p>But definitely the US government is not caring to look at this gross abuse of the terms of the H1B visa policy. SInce the US gov’t is not even looking into this, forget about applying some kind of fine or punishment to the firms.+ THe firms will go on doing this like a fox in a hen house. People like Homer speaking out seem to be rare and there are many more who want to continue the status quo. Probably because it so big and endemic in our cutlure today.</p>
<p>When I saw recently Sec of State CLinton in some kind of close embrace with India to shore up economic ties, I understood some of the bases of this dynamic, this lack of oversight and lack of punishment; in fact there is encouragement. If the US govt did follow the law, it would be more costly to the companies to this kind of stuff. THe US gov’t cares more about the CEOs compensation and the burgeoning middle class of Chenai than regular US middle class members such as myself. Or should I say, ex middle class member. It is so short sighted. As I said in another post: two years ago , I gave $15,000 to the us treasury. LAst yr, the US treasury gave me $7,600. THat math, multiplied by thousands, is the road to rhodesia for US.</p>
<p>In data base language , that embrace that Sec CLinton was in with her counterpart in India can be called a ‘deadly embrace’ - and the American middle class is being suffocated as a result.</p>
<p>+
since the invisible hand of market economics is probably stronger than Uncle Sam, how about someone make it known very plainly how much of a product of service is from, or on account of , foreign entities. We know about our cheap widgets at wal mart. But people might know about white collar insurance products, too, which takes a goodly amount of its operational input from other lands <em>at the expense</em> of your citizen neighbors living next door to you. Our country is yours, too; the house across the street lies vacant and then forecloses; this will have a direct impact on your house, too.</p>
<p>Then reduce the H1B visa. </p>
<p>Well. I guess not. The politicians never agreed on this issue!
What about passing an act that reward those hire new local for every certain ratio to per H1B (if the company does hire H1B).</p>
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<p>Umm, even the best and brightest generally have to be trained in some way for specific tasks that are unique for each company.</p>
<p>“The cream of the crop will always find the best jobs.”</p>
<p>Really? Why do you think so? Why will a company keep you when they can go hire a sweat shop like Infosys and save a ton of money?</p>
<p>If the sweat shop can produce at the same level of quality the “cream of the crop” produces, then said “sweat shop” is not really a sweat shop. Drop the hyperbole.</p>
<p>So it does not bother you that companies like Infosys and Tata take jobs away from US engineers?</p>
<p>Nothing will change as long as our government is run by MNCs. MNCs have more rights than individual citizens in this country.</p>
<p>Is there anybody besides me who sees a parallel between this issue and union vs. non-union (for trades, not engineers)?</p>
<p>Homer:</p>
<p>Not necessarily. It would bother me if the outsourcing process is artificially induced (i.e. politically). If it takes place due to market economics, then “it is what it is”. In any case, those affected should and must retool to fill any newly-created gaps in the system (there are always “gaps” of various sizes).</p>
<p>TippuSultan:</p>
<p>“Nothing will change as long as our government is run by MNCs. MNCs have more rights than individual citizens in this country.”</p>
<p>That comment is the one of the stupidest things anyone can ever utter. Multi-national corporations still require customers to buy their products. If you want to cripple a particular multi-national corp, the mechanism is very simple: stop buying their crap.</p>
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<p>I can honestly say I have never heard of either of those companies. Quick research tells me that Infosys is an Indian company, so no, it doesn’t bother me that they are hiring Indians. Assuming you mean Tata Consultancy Services, that also, after a quick search, turns out to be an Indian company, so no, it doesn’t bother me either.</p>
<p>boneh3ad, no offense, but it seems that you don’t know how companies like Infosys and Tata work. Typically, US companies like Cisco and IBM will dump their US workers and then hire these Indian companies, who will then come in and then do the work that the American engineers used to do. First they will do these jobs in the US, but eventually, they do them in India where they can pay even lower wages.</p>