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Displaced Techies
allow american workers to participate in the global economy!
Tuesday November 29, 2005
Are you a newly displaced GM Worker?
If so, you may want to move to India, as that is probably where your job went:
"GM is going on a hiring spree in India, and it's add jobs both on the factory shop-floor as well in the executive cadre. GM will this week start the process to hire 450 additional people for its India venture," a senior head-hunter told The Times of India.
Technorati tag: layoff
Technorati tag: outsourcing
05:33 am
Tuesday November 29, 2005
posted by gmminks
link
Wednesday November 23, 2005
according to a Senate reference guide "political activities" aka "lobbying" is:
any activity that the person engaging in believes will, or that the person intends to, in any way influence any agency or official of the Government of the United States or any section of the public within the United States with reference to formulating, adopting, or changing the domestic or foreign policies of the United States .
This seems like on an lobbying informal basis (writing letters to your Congressman, etc) should be a right restricted to citizens.
Certainly, any organized effort, especially by non-immigrants, to infulence our lawmakers, should be disclosed in the manner required by law.
Having said that...where do you figure this post from the non-immigrant community stands....informal lobbying? Or an organized effort?
Basically, the posts tells people here on H-1B visas how to approach their HR dept, and request that the HR folks send a letter to Congressmen, asking Congressmen to make sure that all the provisions to increase H-1B visas and green cards do not get left out of the budget bill.
Should non-immigrants be allowed to sway our elected officials?
One thing I hear all the time from non-immigrants is that they pay taxes...even more than most Americans because of the nature of their jobs.
To which I respond, big whoop! An American would have been paying taxes if those jobs had been offered to an American first. In fact, if you think back, an American probably was doing your job when you first got here.
One thing I want non-immigrants to understand is that millions of Americans, highly trained Americans, lost thier jobs when you were recruited to come here to do tech work.
Now, you took up an offer to do what is best for you, so that is all good. But you have to realize that you did displace people here. The high numbers of L-1 and H-1b visas (bot non-immigrant visas, combined with the devestating affects of outsourcing, have discouraged American youths from pursuing high tech majors.
So big freaking deal...you are paying your taxes. When I lived overseas I did the same thing...paid my taxes to my host country.
As I have said before lots of times, US workers got screwed when the H-1B numbers rose so high back in 2000. Their temporary foreign replacements are getting screwed now because the expectation they had to permanantly live in the US is probably not going to be realized.
And let me just add.... it makes it really hard to feel sorry for people who do not see what they have done to the country's economy, and how they are hurting folks who are already here.
Who feel entitled to lobby our Congress, as if they are already citizens in our country.
03:35 pm
Wednesday November 23, 2005
posted by gmminks
link
Monday November 21, 2005
why non-immigrants are desperately lobbying congress
Non-immigrants, you know, folks here on H-1B visas, are desperately lobbying Congress in an attempt to get all the unused green cards of days gone by re-authorized.
I have been trying to figure out why they are so determined and so organized.
Then I did the math.
The H-1B boom years were 2000 - 2003, with the official limit being 195,000 H-1B visas.
There are ways to get the H-1B visa extended for up to six years, based on green card application status.
2000 + 6 = 2006
2001 + 6 = 2007
2002 + 6 = 2008
2003 + 6 = 2009
So, that first very large group of temporary visa-holders is running out of time to get their green cards.
The fact that the non-immigrants, as well as the business community, would lobby congress to allow this many temporary aliens to become permanant residents raises many issues:
- Did employers ever intend for these visa-holders to be temporary workers?
- Did Congress ever intend for these visa-holders to be temporary workers?
- Six years is enough time to many, many people throught technical college programs. We know enrollment in CS degress has dropped off because the job market for IT folks was so bad. Letting these so-called "temp workers" become perm residents, after US citizens were promised that these visas were temporary, is scandalous!
Finally, if these visa-holders are not permanant residents, they are just guest workers. GUESTS. They are like the cousin that is down and out, who asks to sleep on your couch to get on his feet. Then the cousin starts complaining about the food in the house, controlling the TV, etc, and then WON'T LEAVE.
These guest workers really have no business lobbying our elected officials.
05:22 am
Monday November 21, 2005
posted by gmminks
link
Saturday November 19, 2005
How much is a web admin worth?
I got an offer from a company in India called eLanzer Web Solutions. They said they can "provide Web Development for both UNIX and Windows servers. we are expert in PHP/MySql, ASP, ASP.Net, ColdFusion, COM/DCOM, Javascript, Cgi/Perl. We have worked on MySQL, Access, SQL Server or Oracle databases."
But here is the part of the offer that caughte my eye:
We can write scripts and codes at a fraction of costs in your country. Our hourly rate starts from USD $5.
Folks, the minimum wage in the US is $5.15 (Congress is considering raising it to $6.65).
The expertise they claim to have requires (in most cases) a college degree. In fact, at the moment, I am a web administrator - that is how I feed my family. I damn sure couldn't pay the bills on $5 an hour.
So, out of curiosity, I asked some questions. Here are those questions along with the answers:
displacedtechies asked:
why are your hourly rates so cheap
how many administrators do youhave on staff?
what is their avg age?
what is their educational background?
Overly agressive outsourcing company answered:
Our hourly rates are USD $5-10 per hours based upon the job work and technology used. We assured you that you will get a quite competitive quote by eLanzer.
We have around 12-15 designer/developer in our staff. The average age is 25-35. They all are MCA, B.Tech.
Most of our clients are middle men and they have there own marketing/designing company. They prefer outsourcing form us because we always deliver best quality work at low price, we also kept all the information confidential which provides by our clients.
After I asked if he had even looked at the content of my site, I didn't hear from him any longer. Their spam-ish way of contacting clients backfired on them this time.
If anyone ever doubted the harm outsourcing has to our economy, this should be an eyeopener to them.
06:22 am
Saturday November 19, 2005
posted by gmminks
link
Wednesday November 16, 2005
Some folks here on non-immigrant visas have come with every intention of becoming American citizens.
If our country had enough resources to support more people, that would be ok. But we don't. Even Iraq vets coming back from the war are having a hard time finding employment, so how can we as a country accept every person who wants to become a citizen?
I have news for the folks coming over on H-1B visas hoping to convert that to a green card in 6 years....you are being played by corporate America! There are not enough green cards to go around for all of the visa holders that are coming into the US! YOU ARE BEING USED, just like all the folks who worked 12 -14 hour days were being used (you know, the ones you replaced).
And that is pretty obvious when organizations like Compete America threaten Congress with outsourcing the jobs they can't get visas for. The big companies don't need you, they will just send it all back to your country of origin, and your dreams of becoming American will go *poof*.
Look at the stats here on retrogression:
H1B petitions filed and approved by type of petition: FYs 2000-03
Petitions Approved
Init Emp = Initial Employment. Cont. Emp = Continuing Employment
Fiscal year 2000: Total 257,640; Init Emp. 136,787; Cont Emp. 120,853
Fiscal year 2001: Total 331,206; Init Emp. 201,079; Cont Emp. 130,127
Fiscal year 2002: Total 197,537; Init Emp. 103,584; Cont Emp. 93953
Fiscal year 2003: Total 217,340; Init Emp. 105,314; Cont Emp. 112,026
Ref: - H1B petitions received and approved in FY 2003 (Fact Sheet) (USCIS October 2003)
In year 2000 out of 136, 787 worldwide H1B beneficiaries for initial employment 60,757 i.e. about 44.4% were from India.
Ref:- Table 44 Initial H-1B Beneficiaries by occupation and region and country of birth: fiscal year 2000 Yearbook of immigration statistics USCIS website
In year 2000, in case of continuing employment out of 120,853 worldwide H1B beneficiaries 63,940 i.e. 52.9% were from India
Ref:- Table 45 Initial H-1B Beneficiaries by occupation and region and country of birth: fiscal year 2000 Yearbook of immigration statistics USCIS website
In year 2001 out of 331, 206 worldwide H1B beneficiaries 136,646 i.e. about 41% were from India.
Ref: - Table 44 H-1B Beneficiaries by occupation and region and country of birth: fiscal year 2001 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics USCIS Website
In year 2002, out of total world wide H1b beneficiaries of 197,537, India contributed 64980 i.e. close to 33%.
Ref: - Table 33 H-1B Beneficiaries by occupation and region and country of birth: fiscal year 2002 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics USCIS website
In 2003 & 2004 the description has changed to ‘non immigrants admitted’. So we would not refer to 2003 and 2004 figures. We will base our calculations on the basis of actual figures of years 2000 to 2002 provided by USCIS.
Note: - US congress made some additional immigrant visa numbers available by legislation AC21 passed in October 2000 to help retrogression in that year. But we do not know how much of back log was reduced and how much remains. To compensate we are considering period 2000-2002 only and not considering previous backlogs as well as additional visa numbers. We do not claim that our calculations are absolutely correct but do show broad picture.
Estimated Calculations for India
Consider the period between year 2000 to 2003.
Year 2000 H1B contibution from India = 60,757
Every year say 10% of the H1b from India never applied for Green card.
Number of potential GC applicants from India year 2000 = 54,682
Every year say 10% of the applicants have trouble with labor certificatin. And another 10% never get across I140.
Effective number of applicants waiting for I485 adjucation = 44,292
Country Quota for India : 9800 per year.
Spill over from family based on latest figures: 7000 wordwide. India gets 7% of that.
Corrected employment based quota for India for this year: 10290
Backlog for India from Year 2000 : 44,292 - 10,290 = 34,002
Backlog for India from Year 2001 : 133,484 -10,290 = 123,194
Backlog for India from Year 2002 : 170564 - 10,290 = 160,274
In year 2003, H1B quota dropped to 65,000.
But already there is a backlog of 160,274 visa numbers for India. So after 2003 Indians continue to add to to backlogs, but perhaps at a lower rate and still far greater than per country quota of 9800!!! Please note that backlog figures are roughly double of all the estimates if you consider the fact that even dependants are counted towards quota while allocating green cards.
The US has to start supporting her own people first. Immigrants should not be holding on to a false promise that a temporary work visa is a path to citizenship. That lie is hurting the immigrants, and also native-born workers.
05:49 am
Wednesday November 16, 2005
posted by gmminks
link
Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska supports increasing visa limits
According to his website, he would like to accomplish the following:
The Strengthening America’s Workforce Act of 2005 will amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to address the demand for foreign workers. The bill will provide foreign workers for low-skilled jobs that would otherwise go unfilled by admitting a limited number of workers annually through a new temporary worker program. Employers seeking to hire foreign workers through this program must first demonstrate that no qualified U.S. worker exists and that they will provide the same wage levels and working conditions as U.S. workers. Workers will be admitted for a limited period of time and will be allowed to change employers. Visas are good for 2 years and can be renewed. Qualified workers and their families would be provided an opportunity to adjust their immigration status over time.
In order to address the need for high-tech workers and to reduce the existing worker visa backlog, this legislation would allow foreign students who have earned an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering or math from U.S. universities to receive a H-1B work visa without leaving the country and without regard to the annual cap of 65,000. In addition, high-tech workers who have worked in the U.S. for three years may be allowed to adjust to permanent resident status without regard to the annual cap of 140,000. The spouses and children of immigrant workers would also be allowed to adjust status without regard to this cap.
In order to encourage more foreign students to study in the U.S., this legislation would give full-time foreign college and graduate students the opportunity to work part-time while studying at U.S. universities.
The fourth bill, the Immigrant Accountability Act of 2005, will amend the Immigration and Nationality Act in order to encourage those in the U.S. illegally to apply for legal status. The legislation would create an earned adjustment program for long-term undocumented Immigrants and provide an opportunity for illegal aliens and their families to become invested stakeholders in the country if they can demonstrate that they have met all of the following requirements...
05:36 am
posted by gmminks
link
They will most likely vote on H.R. 4241 - Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (Subject to a Rule today (Friday)
05:33 am
posted by gmminks
link
What Immigration Lawyers tell our Congressional Leaders
This letter is what Immigration lawyers encourage temporary visa holders to send to our Congressional Leaders:
Honorable Congressman:
As Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
mentioned a while ago
(http://www.competeamerica.org/economy/compete/index.html),
"As we secure America from terrorists, we do not
want to risk losing the next Albert Einstein… We would be
a far poorer nation in many, many ways." The quote
pertains not only to recruit/retain many smart/skillful
around the world and protect US technologies against
international competitors, but also keep US jobs
intact by slowing down the outsourcing effort while reducing the
nation's deficit up to $150,000,000.00 as stated in Senate bill, S.
1932.
Many large corporations have already outsourced
heavily to other countries to take advantage of cheaper costs of
labor and material. While this helps with improving
these countries living standards in a positive way,
the outsourcing negatively affects many US industries,
including traditional manufacturing. Now, the trend indicates that
increasing mid-sized and smaller Corporate American companies are
outsourcing core corporate areas such as accounting and financing
operations to offshore countries. New York Times says even New
York City has outsourced the tickets such as parking fines that
people need to pay to an Alfrican country
(http://www.busyinternet.com/aboutus/pr/nytimes_07_22_02/In%20New%
20York%20Tickets,%20Ghana%20Sees%20Orderly%20City.htm)
In retrospect, there is little that government can do to reverse
the outsourcing effort and the severe EB-based retrogression has
further forced away lots of bright minds from other countries.
EB-3 category, in particular, gets hit the most and there is
currently no quota for all countries for the rest of the fiscal
year, which starts this October and ends around next Sept.
The retrogression in the EB-3 category immediately
impacts many who are in the last stages
of the permanent resident process. They are not able to file for I-
485 to adjust their status to residents because the priority date is
not current. Depending on the countries affected, the
retrogression could be as far back as 01JAN99 to
15MAR01 (worldwide). This also affects many professionals with
graduate degree who have filed or soon will be filing under this
category as well. What this means is that while foreign workers who
are lawfully presented in the US and have been paying
taxes as Americans do now got stuck in the last stage of
immigration process due to a shortage of the visa numbers.
The temporary solution is to recapture the EB numbers from
the prior years and this does not mean increasing the quota on a
permenant basis. If S. 1932 is enacted into law, the following jobs
will remain in the U.S., albeit by the foreign
workers, contributing to the US companies,
revenues, and competitive advantage over the foreign
businesses by participating in the consumer and investment
market while contributing to the US Federal/State tax and Social
Security systems.
o If the unused H-1B numbers of 300,000 are not
recaptured and used, the U.S. businesses will have
to outsource 300,000 jobs to foreign countries.
o If 90,000 unused Employment Based immigrant visa
quota numbers are not recaptured and used, these
jobs will also be outsourced to foreign countries.
Could you please amend the H.R. 4241 to add Section
8001 and 8002 of the Senate bill to Section 5100 of
the House bill, H.R. 4241, which could potentially
reduce the nation's deficit up to $150,000,000.00.
Your consideration is very much appreciated!!
Sincerely yours,
So, they are saying that unless you let foreign workers come to the US, we will outsource these jobs. Are they saying they can't find 400K workers, even though so many high tech workers are un[der?]employed?
05:23 am
posted by gmminks
link
Wednesday November 2, 2005
Their legal system is .... questionable.
That is what David Ji will tell you. He's an American citizen who is one of the founders of Apex Digital (they sell those DVDs that are $59).
He was picked up by the police during a business trip to China, because allegedly his company owes Sichuan Changhong Electric $470 million. Zhao Yong, the chief executive of this company, "decided where he would be held in custody, when to interrogate him, and how he could help Changhong take over Apex".
So now Mr. Li sits in an apartment owned by Changhong's company, where Changhong has Li signing the rights to his company away. The State Dept. is not helping him, and Changhong apparently owns the law where he is.
Crazy story via NYTimes(you have to register or use bugmenot
is outsourcing fun kids?
05:43 am
Wednesday November 2, 2005
posted by gmminks
link
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