Microsoft Wants No Limit On Hiring Foreigners

[Kadie]

Microsoft Wants No Limit On Hiring Foreigners
Microsoft Leader Lobbies Bush, Congress

POSTED: 2:24 pm PDT April 27, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Bill Gates is urging an end to federal limits on foreign engineers who can be hired by U.S. companies.

In some rare personal lobbying of the Bush administration and Congress, the Microsoft mogul said it doesn't make sense to put limits on the number of "smart people" who can come into the country.

Currently, no more than 65,000 overseas engineers, scientists, architects and doctors are allowed to take such jobs in the U.S.

U.S. labor groups and out-of-work computer engineers argue otherwise, but Gates and other technology executives say they need a larger labor pool.

http://www.thekcrachannel.com/technology/4423402/detail.html




Microsoft wants end to limits on overseas hiring

Associated Press
Apr. 27, 2005 01:51 PM

WASHINGTON - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates urged the Bush administration and lawmakers Wednesday to abolish immigration limits on foreign engineers who can be hired by U.S. companies, a sensitive subject among American technology workers watching their own jobs increasingly move overseas.

During an infrequent visit to lobby personally for changes in federal policy, the world's richest executive said the government should eliminate the limit of 65,000 for overseas workers who can be hired each year by American firms under specialty "H1-B" visas aimed at drawing engineers, scientists, architects and doctors to the United States.

"The whole idea of the H1-B visa thing is, don't let too many smart people come into the country," Gates said during an invitation-only panel discussion at the Library of Congress. "The thing basically doesn't make sense."

more...
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0427gates-immigrants27-ON.html

[Demeter]

1. No, Bill, the Point of Visa Limits Is

to hire the American born and trained smart people at prevailing wages, instead of wetbacks at depressed wages.

[merwin]

3. Exactly. Use up the smart people we've got here before you go overseas

to find talent. Does it make sense to buy more milk when you already have plenty of perfectly good milk sitting in the fridge? :-)

[dudoll]

82. Hard to say

I don't know the reasoning behind this... but if it is purely salary based, I could see why a corporation would want to hire a person from overseas for less money than someone with the exact same skill set from the US. Kind of sucks... as a computer programmer, I obviously wouldn't want to lose my job because they could have someone from overseas do my same job for less. What I don't understand, is if they move here, don't they have the same cost of living then, that we do? How could they afford to continue living here at the lower salary?

[cascadiance]

85. No, they don't...

As has been said by myself and many others here. Their families live in places like India, where the cost of living is about a factor of 10 lower than ours here. Domestic workers need to support families and *futures* living *HERE*. They are looking to make about 5 times as much or more than what they make there (which is still about half of what we would make here competitively), and do it in a fifth of the time they would have to put in to make it over there. They send their money back and probably most of it gets stashed, where ours go out to just paying bills here.

Also, their education is subsidized quite a bit more over there than ours is here, which makes their investment (in terms of education) *FAR LESS* riskier than students investing in education here at a decent school to get in the mix for a decent high tech job.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

[EVDebs]

15. You can read how the H1B visa frauds are perpetrated by Form9035

Check out ETA Form 9035 and the 'attestations' and loopholes Congress has already given the Dept of Labor to bring in foreign workers at

http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/foreign/preh1bform.asp

Pay SPECIAL attention to Item #3

""3. A number of statutory requirements and authorities under the INA, as amended by the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998, sunset on October 1, 2003. The specific program changes that occurred included:
A reduction in the cap on the number of available H-1B visas from 195,000 to 65,000 per fiscal year;
The elimination of the Recruitment and Hiring and the Displacement and Secondary Displacement attestations that previously applied to "H-1B dependent" employers and to employers found to have committed a willful violation or misrepresentation of a material fact on the application;
The elimination of authority granted to DOL to investigate H-1B employers if they have "specific, credible evidence" that a violation has occurred; and
The elimination of the $1,000 fee that is required to be paid by employers of H-1B nonimmigrants to support low-income scholarships and job training programs for workers.
The recruitment and displacement attestations noted above, and the instructions relating to them, were previously outlined in Subsections 1 and 2 of Section F. Due to the possibility that these attestations may be reenacted by the Congress, the Department has temporarily blanked out these portions of the application and instructions.

The previous edition of this application form, displaying an OMB Expiration Date in the upper-right-hand corner of 31 AUG 2003, should no longer be submitted by employers seeking to hire H-1B nonimmigrants.""

NOTE THAT ALL OF THE ATTESTATIONS (MADE UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY) THAT NO U.S. WORKERS WOULD BE DISPLACED HAVE BEEN REMOVED; NOTE THAT THE FINES FOR VIOLATIONS HAVE BEEN REMOVED; NOTE THAT THE INVESTIGATION OF EMPLOYERS WHO VIOLATE THE RULES HAS ALSO BEEN REMOVED !!!!! U.S. workers being displaced were also to be notified of their rights by the Dept. of Labor. This NEVER happens.

Visa fraud in the past with the H1B visa program is an open secret. The current 'caps' have already been violated. The whole Dept. of Labor is in reality a huge program dedicated to lowering wages in the U.S. by importing cheap foreign labor.

[suigeneris]

86. Bloody hell! Good info. I didn't know that and it seriously pisses

me off. I'm gonna spread that stuff around. Thanks for the service.

[EVDebs]

18. H1B Visa fraud congressional hearings

http://www.techlawjournal.com/employ/19990506.htm

snip

"William Yates of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) stated that the INS did a study of 3,247 cases referred to an American Consulate in India. He said that "they were unable to verify the authenticity of close to 45% of the claims made on the petitions. Twenty-one percent of the work experience claims made to the INS were confirmed to be fraudulent in this investigation." (See, Yates testimony, below.)"

[pokercat999]

78. I heard Bill on the radio the other day

he was saying MS mostly hires overseas because there are not enough science and engineering majors in the US. Had nothing to do with wages. The reporter (don't remember his name) was too stupid to ask Bill if he paid Chinese workers the same as US counterpart. Or maybe he thought it was such an obvious lie he didn't need to ask.

[trogdor]

91. So...

...if I were to submit a resume at Microsoft, I would have no problem getting an interview, right?

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

95. LOL.. yeah maybe my husband and I and most of

the other engineering majors we graduated with can get jobs there too. For some reason most of us were not able to find work as actual engineers/programmers. I guess it's because we didn't fill out microsoft job applications.

[pinerow]

2. Smart People generally means "White" people...

can't have too many of them other types here...<sarcasm>

[Demeter]

9. Americans Trained Here At US Colleges Subsidized By US Taxes

come in all colors, buddy, and believe me, there isn't a population more under-employed and unemployed than American-born technologists. Probably has something to do with that "Intelligent Design" crap that fills the minds of the ignorant and untrained. There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design

[megatherium]

12. Protectionism != Racism.

(The symbol != means 'is not equal to', in computer languages such as C or C++). It might be a good idea to let more foreign nationals in (the most talented foreign nationals, that is); or it might be a poor idea -- arguments either way can be advanced. But ethnicity or race isn't the issue here: the software profession has lots of Asian-Americans and other ethnic groups already, as well as plenty of foreign nationals.

[EVDebs]

20. Immigrants are already get over half of all new jobs.....

NATION’S IMMIGRANTS ACCOUNT FOR BULK OF LABOR FORCE GROWTH SINCE 2000 WHILE NATIVE-BORN WORKERS EXPERIENCE HEAVY DECLINES

http://www.nupr.neu.edu/01-04/immigration_jan.html

Interesting. The system seems to be operating in reverse.

[megatherium]

28. As I was saying, there are good arguments for immigration, and there are

good arguments against immigration. I personally think allowing lots of immigration into already swamped job markets is extremely unfair. By scaring off Americans, it can also do real damage to the economy. Bill Gates might not think it's so bad now, but when he starts having trouble finding Americans willing to go into computer science -- due to a hideous job market -- he may come to regret it. Right now we can get excellent foreigners, but this might not be true in the future: China and India are now very attractive for their own nationals; many are returning home.

I've suffered through this myself, as a mathematician -- in the early to mid 1990s, it was tough to get a college teaching job, and many foreign nationals were taking the positions available. Salaries were depressed as a result. I was lucky to get a good situation, but it was only for $30,000, in 1994. For a position requiring a doctoral degree.

[SKKY]

87. Very well "Coded"!!!!

Racism always rears it's ugly head in discussions like these. Do you suppose if Microsoft outsourced a bunch of code to say, Iceland, we'd still have this discussion? I see no difference between Iceland and India when it comes to outsourcing. Either way, it's huring the American software professional, and that's the much, much larger issue here.

[trogdor]

92. Iceland's population is smaller than Vermont's.

India has over a billion people, and their software engineers make less than what a Wal*Mart cart passer-outer makes here. What's your point?

[SKKY]

94. I've made my point...

It's not about race. But, if you insist, I"ll repeat it. RACE HAS NOTHING, I REPEAT, NOTHING TO DO WITH OUTSOURCING OF SOFTWARE. Got it?

[pokercat999]

98. I agree with you this has nothing to do with race; corporate america

knows nothing but cold hard cash and will stop at nothing to cut costs. Even if it means they stab their only customers in the back. Someday the CEO's of the world will tremble and cry in fear.....what a dream.

[lanlady]

21. disagree

MS wants the guys who will take 30 to 50% in salary less than an American. They can be blue, brown, purple or green for all Bill Gates cares.

[idlisambar]

36. Not true

Microsoft employees are payed very well by industry standards. Lockheed with their surprisingly large software development operation pays a lot less than Microsoft and for national security reasons they tend to hire a lot more Americans.

[bettyellen]

50. but he wants to pay less...these visa are a permit to exploit and

underpay workers. they are fucked. and it will depresss wages for the rest of us.
loads of unemployes and talented people are here already.

[idlisambar]

51. I don't think that's a primary motivation for Gates

Gates real goal is to get the brightest IT professionals he can working for Microsoft. As someone in the industry I know first hand that the most of the new talent coming into the industry is not American. Even at American universities the proportion of computer science students of Indian and East Asian (Chinese, Korean mostly) nationality is very large. In my department over half of new graduates were not American. The younger the IT professional the more likely that he/she is to be American.

On the other hand as an American IT professional myself I can identify with both sides here. I don't want to be out of a job or have my wages depressed. I think this effect is very real.

The ideal solution in my view would be that the government do more to increase the overall pool of jobs available to those with an science/engineering inclination so that both talent from abroad and American talent can both realize success right here in the U.S. This way we can have our cake and eat it too.

How to do this? Develop industries such as renewable energy, electronics, etc. in which the US is currently weak.

[bettyellen]

52. we are weak in a lot of development, but the hb1 permits are

allowing them to break down american work rules. no unions to bust anymore, so they just want to do an end run around US labor law too, while paying less, which of course they can get away with.

[idlisambar]

56. The L-1 not the H1-B should be the target

L-1 visa holders are not required to be paid at prevailing wages, and currently there is a lot of abuse with this visa. Here is IEEE's position on the L1.....

http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/positions/L1visa.html

The H1-B is less nefarious, while it does place downward pressure on wages because of the increased labor pool the effect is not drastic -- I know a lot of H1-B holders that are very well paid. Also, practically speaking, H1-B holders tend to stay here and eventually become citizens.

Nevertheless, The number of H1-B's should be debated. By no means should we just listen to Gates and eliminate the limit. My only point is that Gates's primary motivation is to be able to recruit from a wider pool of people, not reduce wage pressure. Microsoft is not like Wal-Mart in this respect, it does value it's employees.

[trogdor]

93. So why don't they...

...go cruising American high schools like Army recruiters, giving exams, seeking out the best and the brightest (yes, they do exist), and offering scholarships in exchange for a certain number of years' employment at the benefactor's firm? Why don't they found their own institutes where people get exactly the education these firms require - kind of like the General Motors Institute?

We all know why - because that's not how American business operates. Figuring out what skills you need to get hired, what school to go to, how to pay for it, and then proving it to some faceless HR geek is YOUR job. Oh, and when your skills are obsoleted because some Indian will do the same work for $12K/yr., starting over retraining, as many times in one's working lifetime as the economy requires, is also YOUR job.

[cap]

77. it certainly is true

check out www.zazona.com for the salaries paid by Microsoft to H1b visa holders. You'll notice they are far below market. H1b's werent getting close to 6 figure salaries during the boom despite the fact that they were "experts".

[Igel]

64. Ah. Well, I guess that many Indians and Pakistanis are

in some sense Caucasian, since they speak some Indo-European language; in most of history and prehistory languages didn't spread without their bearers also spreading their genes, so there must be some "Indo-European" genetic component there, and the PIE were more Caucasian than anything else. (I'll leave aside Dravidian speakers on the S. Asian subcontinent.)

And genetically Asians aren't too dissimilar from Caucasians, or at least the European genetic stock is closer to Asian genetic gene distributions than to any other (and, I think, vice-versa), so we'll classify them as "honorary Caucasians" for our purposes.

And, if we let "Caucasian" mean "white" (since I'm defining things capriciously, why not?), then I think I can mostly agree with what you say in your subject line. But only mostly.

And with the body of your message, I'd need a few more pages of twisting definitions.

[Robert Oak]

73. that is PATHETIC! you have clearly no knowledge of US engineers

If you worked in the field you might have a clue we're talking
about BROWN PEOPLE who happen to be AMERICANS.

Try walking into any chip development team and try finding the "white guy"...

you will see hundreds of US Chinese Americans and Indian Americans
everywhere.

Idiot.

[progressivebydesign]

4. Gates talks out of both sides of his mouth...

.. He is SOOOO concerned about the state of education here, he talks about it, sponsors programs to teach technology (windows based, of course), BUT the bastard is AT THE SAME TIME destroying BREADWINNER jobs in AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF? Does Gates belive that his speaking about the problems of America's students and how they can't fulfill his technical needs is going to be solved by creating a permanent underclass of underemployed breadwinners??? Guess what, Microsoft and Gates... children whose families don't have fucking jobs can't go to college to learn the technical skills you pretend to be so concerned about in America.

How fucking rich does one person need to be?

[high density]

32. I don't understand Gates at all

He's such a huge philanthropist but then allows his company to do such stupid and rotten things. It makes no sense.

[SharonAnn]

67. He wasn't a philanthropist at all until he married and his wife told him t

She and his father convinced him that he looked greedy. Of course, I think he really is and that he is overly impressed with himself.

[northzax]

38. I disagree with this, in point of fact

This actually keeps the jobs in the US, as opposed to moving them offshore, thereby sustaining the employment market here. Let's face facts, Chine, India, South Korea and others are producing more engineers than the US is. Should Microsoft, Google, Sun and the rest move their technical jobs to where the engineers are, or keep them here where at least US-trained people can compete for them? Gates spends a lot of his own money to develop engineering training programs in the US, but there is hardly a glut of real engineers in this country, technicians, perhaps, but real software engineers? people who create? not really, we're not producing them. MS needs them, where should they get them?

It's a global world, better jobs here, where people can grow into them and compete, than jobs there that are untouchable.

[progressivebydesign]

65. Umm we have thousands of unemployed engineers. N/t

[cascadiance]

66. The reason why they fail is because of cost of living...

The equation is such that those who might become prospective engineers here and want to have families *HERE* see working in technology as not being worth as much as other better paying jobs here that aren't "outsourced" as much to foreign workers. Especially when one considers the amount of talent, investment in education, the pricey locations one has to live in to work in these professions (Bay Area, L.A., Boston, New York, etc.).

We may come across as being less "trained" than our counterparts, but I would counter it is kids seeing (rather smartly I might add) that they are better off training themselves for other professions than the "outsourced" engineering profession.

Throw all of the dollars at education you want, there's a fundamental cost issue that is facing us, and a government that doesn't want to provide incentives for domestic companies to hire domestic workers, and you have an equation where our nation's workforce technical expertise is going to decline and decline and decline further... It is only capitalism at work here. Not some notion of our schools failing.

CEOs of these companies still want to have companies' headquarters here and live here themselves. I think our government should utliize this motivation to force upon these companies the choice of having their head honchos being able to live here *and* have to deal with taxation rules, etc. that force them more to hire domestically, or tell them that they can have their executive staffs live overseas, where they become just another foreign company. Then, in order for these CEO's, etc. to want to "save money" by outsourcing our jobs, they have to make a choice of being able to do that *AND* having to move overseas themselves, or stay here and live by our rules to revive our workforce and our economy.

[sleipnir]

59. It's like the old saying a couple of friends and I have...

"Bill Gates is simultaneously both God and Satan."


How true, how true.

[cornermouse]

5. We have lots of unemployed computer programmers right here.

I really don't see any good reason to give Gates special priveleges.

[TahitiNut]

13. Amen.

[Deja Q]

26. Precisely.

[davidinalameda]

6. as long as they're straight

[dbonds]

7. All part of a larger attempt to comititize the Software Engineers.

First they tried to do it with methodologies that anyone could take a set of input criteria and out pops a software design (don't get me wrong on methodologies, they help even the best software artist), then outsourcing - but it is hard to manage software projects overseas, now import cheap labor. But they have to know once the cheap labor gets here they will need more to live, and they will see those companies that don't want to exploit and go there. The mental arts are not valued anymore, they think we are ripping them off.

[SharonAnn]

68. Which is funny, because Bill Gates thinks his mental arts are worth a lot.

A whole lot.

He thinks that the reason Microsoft is so big and successful is because of his mental abilities. And he thinks that he brought it all to be.

[Catt03]

8. I loathe Bill Gates

Microsoft is so overated and monopolizes the industry while the products are inferior.

[Tempest]

11. Microsoft is the Wal-Mart of the computer industry

They have never competed on a level playing field.

[w4rma]

10. Definitely use Linux instead of M$ crap. (nt)

[nolabels]

83. Okay, So what is the best Linux system then?

Another poster in another thread said "SuSE 9.2" is good product. Anybody got any got some links to good info on comparisons to all the different versions?

[necso]

14. You know, Bill,

people can actually be trained (or otherwise learn) to do new work -- and they can learn while working in one job to do another.

But that wouldn't be treating people like trained oxen (trained at their own expense no less), each at its own little treadmill -- so it would be inconsistent with the American style of management.

Oh, and another thing. Robber barons should not delude themselves into thinking that they are real leaders -- they're just second-rate pirates with better PR.

[Fire Walk With Me]

16. So the word OUTSOURCE has become passe?

[Robert Oak]

30. this is a similar thing, people as commodities

but due to logistics, it's easier to bring over cheaper labor
to the US...

and also bear in mind the H-1B VISA is corporate controlled..
it's like indentured servitude, and corporations can demand
100 hrs a week and the H-1B VISA will say nothing for fear of
being fired and sent back home in "shame".

[elehhhhna]

17. H1B's are like indentured servitude papers.

[scarletlib]

19. well, I guess that explains the companies reversal in supporting

legislation protecting gays in Washingston state.

[Bob3]

22. What about gay foreigners?

considering Microsoft's position on Washington State's civil Unions law.

[Orangepeel]

23. Microsoft would probably rather have gay foreigners

no spousal benefits to pay, as long as there are no civil unions.

[Bo]

24. ...as we die of hunger

[Cone10]

25. Lift Limits of Engineers

I am disgusted with Microsoft. Their products sucks and have so many holes and security problems that it doesn't' surprise me he wants to go overseas to look for people. He is one of the most ethically challenged people in this country so he fits right in with the
Republican agenda. Maybe he should have finished school and has taken that ethics class while he was there.

[Robert Oak]

31. the reason it's full of holes is because he has shit on US engineers

repeatedly...he has a very competitive environment set up...
pits engineers against each other and of course they have been
using cheaper labor for years now.

That's why it sucks...the focus isn't on engineering it's on
covering one's own ass within that corporation in order not to get
fired.

I just laughed when it was claimed they got the "best and the brightest"
in the 90's...more like the youngest and most sociopathic.

But, still a job is a job and this is just total bs that they want
to have unlimited foreigners into the country while super talented
world class US engineers are unemployed...
it's really a crime.

[Democat]

27. This may help explain why Microsoft is turning anti-gay

They are kissing up to the Bush admin on outsourcing.

[Robert Oak]

29. Depression of Wages/Age discrimination

It's been proven repeatedly that use of the H-1B VISA is not
because there is a shortage of talent who are legal residents/US Citizens but in order to depress wages and fire any engineer over
40.

It's blatant age discrimination. The IEEE statistics (and
members of the IEEE have a US college degree, BS minimum) show
the dramatic increase of unemployment amoung very talented
US engineers.

BTW: Whoever claims this is racist is really uninformed on the
democraphics of engineers..."brown people" who are US residents
and women are represented in engineering strongly.

It's plain
discrimination against anyone who is a US citizen and over 40.
These are people with patents, top university degrees...
and they are getting shit on by the very corporations they helped build. degrees from MIT, Stanford, Georgia Tech and so on...in order to depress engineering salaries.

[cap]

79. it would be interesting to see the number of h1b's over 40

eom

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

96. It's not like there are very many opportunities for young engineers either

It's incredibly hard to find entry level jobs these days.

[kodi]

33. if gates gets his wish, it'll ignite white collar workers against the GOP

also, when american born scientists and engineers can not get decent jobs, see how long it takes for some of them to settle some scores with society.

ted kozinski was just the tip of the iceberg. it is one thing to be stupid and crazy, another thing entirely to be smart and crazy.

[Demeter]

34. To My Knowledge, Unemployment Does NOT Lead to Schizophrenia

of course, the reverse isn't true--as Kozinski shows.

[kodi]

35. no, it doesn't, but employment sure can dampen anti-social behavior

it is the fundamental purpose of the nunn-lugar program to fund ex-soviet nuclear scientists so they do not ply their trade on the blackmarket.

there are 125,000 american based members of the american chemical society, where membership is restricted to those either with degrees in the physical sciences or have long established employment in the field of chemistry. that membership number probably reflects 1% of the people in the country with the brains or wherewithall to use such knowledge for nefarious purposes.

that means at least 10,000,000 people in america who can do things with chemistry worse than tim mcveigh and terry nichlos did 10 years ago with only fertilizer.

frankly, i am surprised that more domestic terrorism has not occurred but i bet if the economy tanks at least a few of that 10,000,000 will decide "fuck it" and do some damage.

all it takes to set some folks off is to lose a job, have crushing debts due to medical problems and no way out of the situation to breed domestic terrorists.

[frustrated_lefty]

41. If that gets you thinking,

consider the possibility of a few pissed off virologists.

[kodi]

44. i do and i recognize how important it is for all of us to get along

.

[lovuian]

37. I hope these Foreigners sabotage his industry & steal all his

work and dispose of him properly Bill days as a big player is slowly going down hill this is a ploy of a desperate man trying to keep from a sinking ship!!!

[geniph]

39. God DAMN you for talking this horseshit, Bill!

Dammit, I live in the Seattle area. Do you know how many good - even great - programmers, coders, software engineers, etc., I know who can only find temp work, or work as receptionists, or baristas? This is utter, complete horseshit. There are plenty of great people begging for jobs here - yet you bitch and moan and whine because you don't want to hire them. You want to hire people who won't complain about being treated like shit. Fuck the smart people here who are losing their houses and sleeping in their cars - you only want to bring in more and more and more coders from overseas, so you can lower everyone's wages and benefits. For what? So you can buy more megaMansions and Lear Jets?

God DAMN you for this, Gates, you soulless bastard.

[NashVegas]

40. Now You Know Why They Put Ralph Reed on the Payroll

Sad.

[frustrated_lefty]

42. Devil's advocate here:

High tech American's generally don't seem that driven. There's the occasional exception, but, generally speaking, they want a 40-60 hr work week, they treat the "job" as a job and not like something their life depended on.

This may sound like stereotypification, but every Asian, Indian, and New Zealander I've ever worked with put in insane hours and never complained about it once. If you're an employer and want to see your employees working, whether or not they're actually accomplishing anything, I could see why over-seas employees might look attractive.

American's, all too often, don't seem particularly driven or creative. Some are, but most are not. Hiring a foreigner, at least you can be relatively certain of having an employee with the drive. If they have the creativity too, you've hit gold.

Everyone is now welcome to shoot me down for whatever reason. Bottom line, though, I think American workers often fall short on the drive, and that's something that only we can fix.

One caveat. In computer programming, I think a lot of older employees are getting shafted. Computer geeks tend to stay on top of the latest developments. Getting rid of the more experienced person with the latest technology makes no sense at all. I suspect that does just occur due to age bias, which is stupid and self-defeating.

[Robert Oak]

43. that is just factually wrong

Every engineer I know puts in > 60 hours a week, sometimes 80 and works insane hours.

If one notices that cuts the hourly rate of engineering work in half
from a salaried position and it not mentally or emotionally healthy..

but I have yet to see any American engineer a "slacker" in any sense
of the word and I know for I have been in the field for years.

I started a dailykos diary on this topic with some real statistics
and verifiable references.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/28/16308/9832#7

What I find so despairing is the number of people who don't
realize what is happening here, which is the decimation of the
middle class, workers rights and solidarity amoungst American working
people.

It's the same attitude towards blue collar workers in the 1980's
when their jobs were outsourced. Somehow, magically, American
workers who built up the industry, who worked their tails off
during WWII to have the fastest and largest military manufacturing
take place in history and allowed the United States to win the war...

well, magically, when it is convenient, they become lazy ass
slackers to justify screwing them over.

All I can say is when this happens to you, I hope you consider
yourself a lazy ass slacker...

for just like those blue collar workers in the 1980s, engineers
are hard working, very intelligent Americans who built up the high
tech industry in the 1st place...

and this bizarre attitude of not supporting American workers
who are getting the shaft adds insult to injury by
now claiming they are "stupid" and "lazy".

It is like a rapist blaming a victim claiming she was "asking for it"
when blaming Americans for this multinational corporate agenda
to depress workers and wages and workers rights world wide.

It's unconscionable, inaccurate and insulting.

[frustrated_lefty]

45. Let me clarify

I don't think American employees are "stupid" and "lazy". In high tech positions, I think Americans are some of the most creative folks out there.

In research, any kind of developmental science, you need two things. The first is creativity. The second is dedication. Have the idea, and then bring it into reality. Americans, in my opinion, have been slow bringing the idea into reality.

I apologize if this offends you, but, again, I think this is something which only Americans can fix. That's one man's opinion. We have the creativity. Let's bring the drive to support it.

We disagree on many things, it seems, but I sincerely apologize for saying anything you find insulting.

[Robert Oak]

46. problem is our corporations are stifling creativity

The number of US patents has gone done dramatically...

and it's not that Americans have lost their creativity...suddenly, magically, in the last 4 years...(remember 4 years ago
all Americans were these brilliant innovative thinkers...touted
by corporations and the press)...

it is that our corporations and venture capitalists are no longer supporting engineers so they can be creative.

Right now, our US venture capitalists REQUIRE startups to
have half of their engineering staff be offshore outsourced
in order to obtain funding.

Anyone who has been involved in startup projects or culture
knows this requirement is insane. 80% of all startups fail (before
this demand) and a startup has to work long, very difficult
hours and the project requirements can change hourly...the code
base can change hourly...so to demand that anyone who wants to
start a new company based on a new idea they have...manage
half of their team half way around the world is adding to the burden
of execution.

Also, people are worried sick about their careers. Who wants to
help a corporation that will turn around and screw you by firing
you and even worse, making you train a cheaper foreigner in the
very intellectual property you designed before firing you....

not exactly real motivation to contribute in creativity to a company.

Then, this "bottom dollar" corporate culture creates a "save my ass"
mentality which just doesn't lend itself to attempting innovation...
which by it's nature may result in failure because one is trying
a novel approach. Fail and potentially you lose your entire
financial security? Well, that truly is a de-motivator...

Finally to obtain an advanced degree is so not economically viable
for Americans. Stipends are @ 8k-14k and PhD programs now
go to 7 years (up from 3-4)...which means one is working below
the poverty line for years and there just isn't enough financial
support.

[frustrated_lefty]

47. I agree with everything you've said.

I don't think there is anything we can do to fix the immediate economic environment.

I do think Anericans can show more drive. That is all we can do. I don't have a definative answer. Things go wrong left and right. My superiors are looking for the short-time fix.

The bottom-line is, we NEED a long term fix.

Hey, I just finished a 7 yr Ph.D. with one of the people who discovered HIV. I make less money than you want to hear about.

You sound frustrated like I am. What do you think we can do to make the world a better place?

[Robert Oak]

48. congratulations!

Well, one thing I think we can work on (and truly I am mulling
a major career change which would involve another advanced degree
minimum with of course no money because it doesn't subscribe to the current corporate profit making mentality)...

is so people like you would be compensated as much as a Medical Doctor or corporate "Viagra" researcher when HIV research would
benefit the world enormously, yet post-docs and other researchers
not directly sponsored by a corporation (or working in the indentured servitude university system, under the absolute control of a tenured professor) make peanuts..

(pressure in public policy and government grant/educational/institutional funding to incite further R&D that's
truly for the public good/build up of critical technologies).

For example, here's an idea I haven't actually thrown out there...
but how about the DoD giving out global warming contract work
to these "lobbying like hell" defense companies. Accenture
can't engineer their way out of a paper bag..they threw away 150M dollars in an FBI software project that didn't produce any usable code for a database integration project...but at least LockHeed
Martin delivers....instead of contracting yet another jet or whatever
how about alternative fuel technologies?

And how about making sure the jobs created are US based on top of it?
To me, that kills about 4 birds with one stone, yet I've never seen
any idea like this.

[frustrated_lefty]

57. Check back on this.

I have to deposit a check this coming week, but there are some ideas I'd like to bounce around with you, if you're up to it.

I have to put the check in to make another donation to DU so we can communicate a bit more privately. I've got a solid idea for alternative fuel (which is out of my field), and more ideas involving viruses which may lead to patents.

Just give me a sign if any of this is of interest to you.

FL

[Robert Oak]

58. Sure

I'm a CEE/MA MS R&D by skill, so viruses I don't know except
general reading, but biochem I can probably sort through, anything
EE/DSP/MA piece of cake....both r out of my area as well, but alt.
fuels I have been reading, esp. biochem.

[Barkley]

61. Its MS that's really discouraging American creativity

Microsoft controls 80 - 90 percent of the world's O.S. systems;
that's very, very inefficient.

Surely there must be better programs and systems on planet earth.

But many consumers get locked into MS and prefer MS network capacity.

The lock-in effect and network effect discourage creativity;
why should I invest the time, money and effort in coming up
with a better 'mouse trap' if I there's a strong probability
no one's going to buy it.

[cascadiance]

62. This offends me...

As an older developer who just a couple of days ago worked past midnight and work most of my days into evening hours, I reject completely your notion that Americans aren't driven.

Perhaps some of these "imported foreigners" are more driven because in their cases the reward is *more* than it is for their American counterparts. Many of them have families back home that they support in their home countries. Many of these countries have costs of living that are *far less* than they are here, and the money they send back to their families goes *a lot* farther than the money domestic workers use to support their families. You can understand why they might be dedicated more to something that provides a lot more value to them in *real money value* than it does to us. Many folks here might have to do something else on the side (like get into real estate), to make the real dollars to make a difference with their families. Just this week another very decent engineer is moving from here in Socal to Texas so that he can spend more time with his family and also to get more involved with doing real estate here. I think he sees the real estate market peaking here in San Diego.

I've seen H1-B Visa workers "push out" other workers. It's not because they are smarter. It is because they are cheaper. I've helped train Indian contractors (much to the dismay of my boss at the contracting firm I worked with) because they eventually replaced me with those cheaper, but less knowledgeable contractors.

When I worked permanently at Sun, I heard other mid level managers joking about how they got special deals to get "cheap contractors" to do work for them. The H1-B Visa contracts state that H1-B Visa workers aren't supposed to be paid less than their equivalents at the firm they work at. The problem is that for years, big companies have worked around this by hiring contracting agencies or "job shoppers" where all they do is hire H1-B Visa people, so that these contracting firms (with no domestic equivalent workers working for them), can pay their contractors anything they please. They make sure that they document that they are providing *a service*, not *contract employees* to the contracting firm (Sun, HP, etc.) so that they can work around this restriction.

There are sites that show average salaries for H1-B Visa employees and they are far less on average than domestic workers.

This is the cheaper labor that Bill Gates wants. Heck, he already employs over a third of his employees in India anyway.

You say that another thing is that we aren't as big in entrepeneurship as we were in driving in new business. I'm afraid that's going to be made worse with the latest bankruptcy bill that passed. With the elimination of many forms of bankruptcy protection, it's going to eliminate much of those "driven engineers" to start up newer businesses as the risks may be too much now for them to bear without the older bankruptcy protection they had before. Now we'll be more like Europe and not have as much startups. Only problem is that in Europe they also have more guaranteed health insurance and vacation, so it's going to hit American workers that much harder and force them to work that much harder at two to three jobs with little extra time for other ventures just to support their families and medical expenses.

This is fascism starting to rear it's ugly head. I'm afraid though that it won't get stopped until we wake up too late and it has to be a violent solution instead of a constructive democratic solution. I've had two separate conversations with people just this week (a Democrat and a sympathetic Republican) who said that it would probably get to that down the road.

[machiventa]

63. Put down the crack pipe .....

and step away. I have been working in the IT industry for 20 years I find your statements to be so f'ing wrong it has pulled me out of lurking mode. Having been around the world in many IT shops there is no group more motivated and driven than the American technoid. And no they arent driven by lower salaries.

[bleedingheart]

70. So you think that people who work in excess of 60 hours a week

are productive?

My background is in industrial engineering and very few people are capable of being productive 8 hours a day.

From personal experience I have met many people who spend countless hours at work not getting much done because they are just keeping themselves busy in order to "keep up appearances". One former coworkers was from S. Africa...he spent 12 hours a day in the office and he spent only about 4 hours of it productively. He was really good at the game, he came in at 6:30am..opened the office, put on the coffee and made internation phone calls on our lines for free...by the time everyone else had arrived around 8am...he was bragging about how he had put his extra 90 minutes in already!! But yet I came in around 8pm and left at 5pm and I still managed to do more than him...and he was still there pissing around.

My line of work puts me in contact with a number of foreign engineers brought to this country and I will tell you this, Stupid and Lazy is universal...no country or race has a group of people who are exempt from it. I work in consulting and I can't tell you the number of individuals, both American and foreign born, that can not do the job they are hired to do.

Personally I think the reason that a lot of foreigners are brought into the US is because American corporations think that they can suck the life out of them cheaply.

Why do you think that you can be fired from most companies for sharing your salary information with each other? Because they don't want you to know that you are working for a lot less than the guy in the cubicle next to you.

In the 1920's Corporate America loved the boat load of hardworking immigrants who worked their ass off for nothing and when they finally wised up and unionized then the middle class in this country was born.

Currently the tech industry is tired of paying high wages and now they are going to start hiring foreigners to do the work for a lot less.

It is all about money.

[cap]

80. where the hell have you been...

Most Americans in the profession do work the hours...

But why should all this damm overtime be the measure of work ethic...

Look at the ethics... when you are working 70-80 hrs/week you have no home life... If you have a family, your spouse is doing everything. You are no companion and you are no father/mother. You are a lump in front of the tube. Is this what we are all to aspire to?

Ever look at the productivity measures? They go down after 50 hrs. It's just running on the cheap.

[Red Fox]

49. From an outsider's point of view

Don't you think Bill is simply doing what most (confused, for lack of a better word) Americans are preaching when they talk about their country and their "oh so holy system": Capitalism?

Why go for expensive and decent, when one can go for cheaper and same quality? Isn't that what capitalism is about? Survival of the strongest, cutting off the weakest?

Patriotism (as in sticking with your fellow "countrymen") is for the common folk, the rest are rich or dead.

Regardless, the procedures and laws your government is applying are a bit contradicting as far as that goes IMO.

[idlisambar]

69. You're right

But the US is not a monolith. There are plenty of people who are not market fundamentalists and would not be persuaded by arguments such as "that's what capitalism is all about".

[Triana]

53. "Larger Labor Pool" Means CHEAP labor..

...and the cheaper the better, 'cause that's more profit the CxOs can pocket. THAT'S what they mean. They can't SAY that, of course but that's exactly what they're after. Period.

There are SOOO many smart programmers and engineers out of work in this country and M$ says that? Makes no sense, does it - EXCEPT when you consider their true meaning: THEY WANT THE CHEAPEST LABOR THEY CAN GET.

[area51]

54. "Microsoft Wants No Limit On Hiring Foreigners"

More like MS (& this administration) wants slave labor & to keep Americans unemployed. :mad:

[saigon68]

55. He can also stick INTERNET EXPLORER up his ass.

While he's at it.

[cap]

84. his poor bum...

:)

[Barkley]

60. Does cheaper labor mean lower prices for consumers?

I keep hearing all this stuff about controlling labor cost and being competitive.

So when are cheaper prices going to show up in the stores?

The price MS charges is well above its marginal costs; this
represents a HUGE economic inefficiency and essentially represents
a 'private tax' that MS enjoys.

and GATES want to lower labor cost!?!?!?!


Instead of lowering labor cost, Bill how about lowering cost towards the marginal cost?

[Robert Oak]

74. NO it DOES NOT mean cheaper prices from Microsoft

case in point is Microsoft Office. I think the last I saw they wanted
600 dollars plus.

Their software is now by far the most expensive part of a computer
system.

Their "MSDN development environment" can be 20000 dollars per person.

this is to develop code on Windows platforms.

[Fleshdancer]

71. So corporations should control immigration now??

well, Gates is certainly lobbying at the best time, isn't he? The McAdministration loves to cater to corporations so he'll probably get his way.

And there shouldn't be a limit to the "smart" people who come in to the US? Well if intelligence is a factor, then the 9/11 hijackers would have been more than legal. They were horrible, psychotic terrorists who had to be smart in order to do what they did.

We have more than enough engineering majors in US colleges all over the nation. Down here in Austin, there are plenty of out of work engineers searching for jobs. I don't expect much out of our govt. right now for obvious reasons, but maybe they'll realize that American workers should be their top priority...the only way to do that is to make it an election issue. Slam the supporters in Congress in '06 and '08. Start now.

[DiverDave]

72. So, the 16K I borrowed for I.T. school

is on me, as I cant find a job...I'm back to driving truck again.
AND still paying the goddamned student loan off.

Yeah, thanks a hell of alot bill.

[Robert Oak]

75. H-1B VISA IS CONTROLLED by the corporation

The corporation sponsors it, pays for it, does all of the legal work for it...

and controls the engineer on it absolute...step out of line, get sent
back to your home country with no job.

You got it, there are tons of engineers out of work

and offically "more smsrter" than the foreign engineer for this reason..
the Indian MSc and Chinese MSc is equivalent to a US BS degree
and even then sometimes they are required to take additional
undergraduate courses.

A US Masters degree in engineering is way more education and in depth
study than the foreign Masters.

So, we have US Masters degrees who can't get a job.

This is about depression of wages, pure and simple, plus the VISA
system just blows apart workers rights since the corporate
complete controls the ability to stay in the country through this
VISA.

[GetTheRightVote]

76. I am a programmer & this is a hot topic for me,

I hate the fact that they are dragging down our wages due to importing H1Bs. We have plenty of talented programmers in our own country and do not need any imports.

I personally know so many unemployed or under-employed programmers that I want to just scream while I am working with imports.

International coders do not understand our ways or culture and do not code for it either, how many times I have had to correct their coding.

In fact, it is the American Programmer who is being discriminated against, as if an Asia is really that much better then an American, oh please, I can out code the best of them.

It is the cheap cost of the H1B visa holder that they are wanting and nothing can take the truth of it away. There are plenty of smart Americans who could code here at home if given the opporunity but they live here with all it high cost.

The H1B I have come into contact with can not wait to go home again and have no wish to stay here for any great length of time. They send their wages home to take care of their families there very similiar to the Mexicans. Most I have spoken with can not stand our country and would never marry a member of our society.

This is not a problem of race but a problem of economies, who gets to take a pay check home, to feed their children, and to have their country allow them the opporunity to work in their own homeland.

Plus, we are still missing out on the issue of security, how many times I have seen them get rid of personnel due to their abuse of our American system. At one time I saw my project manager take a man from china out the door and in the end it was due to the fact that he was sending American HR information home to china so that individuals there could get visas to come to American.

There are just to many concerns for this abuse of the American citizens to be allowed to continue. It must stop this importing of coders when in the end we do not need them at all. This country needs to stop importing personnel in all areas of employment period.

[Robert Oak]

81. discrimination based on nationality: American engineer

NO kidding and to imagine just 4 years ago Americans were geniuses
and Americans also built up the industry itself.

Now it's like any American and especially anyone over 40 is in the
"untouchables" class.

It's beyond the overall depression of wages it's also about career
and plain being wiped out economically. When one invests 6 years
of education and 10 years in expertise to be dumped off like
yesterday's garbage the cost in both real economics and human
trauma is immense.

It depresses me to no end that here we are on liberally blogs
and so forth and they just do not get it...

that the one being discriminated and under attack is the American
middle class.

[FormerOstrich]

88. Here's my two cents

While I believe in many cases the H1B is used to reduce wages I don't think that's all of it.

I think that in many instances the corporate elite do believe American software engineers are dumb & lazy, thus they should be allowed to import (or offshore the work).

Now honestly, it's not that we don't have some fault in this, as I think we do (more on that in a moment). I believe the real issue is the number of projects that have been shelved over the years. A very high percentage of projects are never completed.

However, in spite of what the corporate elite think it is not because the developers weren't capable. It's more because companies are so inefficient, they place incompetent people in management positions, and have allowed the marketing types drive much of the process.

I don't know how many development companies have an outrageous ratio of non-developers to developers. I believe 20 or 30 non-developers to 1 developer is not uncommon.

Many companies refuse to acknowledge or learn what it takes to produce software. They all are searching for a silver bullet. New silver bullets are a hot market (e.g. code generators, RAD,....the list goes on). They refuse to acknowledge the true cost associated with software. Instead of looking inward they would rather kick the developers to the curb.

My personal observation is a ton of money has been thrown down the toilet because they were convinced that they could demand it to be otherwise.

Microsoft went up against "Big Blue" (IBM) and toppled them (for those that think that Microsoft discourages OS vendors it was way worse then than now).

IBM had a horribly slow development cycle. However, their products were rock solid and secure. Then Microsoft introduced something all together different. First to market wins. They were able to out feature IBM in every way....except quality and security. The market bit and they won.

The industry is still paying the price for that. When you develop Windows applications you have to deal with their bugs. You have to deal with their security holes. It adds time to your development cycle. Not to mention that it is difficult to overcome inherent design flaws, such as security, on a layer above the OS.

I believe Gates has forgotten from where he began.

Now, as for us. There isn't any other industry that pays salaries comparable to Developers past wages that didn't require at least a four year degree, certification requirements (including employment requisites), and an established career path.

I always knew why I made the big bucks...it was because we were expected to be on call at all times, we worked outrageous hours at times, and most projects were a pressure cooker.

However, that started changing (even the H1Bs). As the market grew Developers started wanting something more like 8 to 5 jobs, yet they still wanted and got the higher wages.

Plus, as an industry there are a great many developers that really shouldn't be developers. We never established good mentoring habits because of the schedule pressures (First to market wins). Nor, did the technical management redirect them to more appropriate jobs.

This may be true within other industries as well. However, when you add the super ego developers to the mix there is a certain percentage that doesn't help the rest of us as far as image and credibility.

I bet all the developers here know what I mean by super ego developers. Some of them are very intelligent and some are not. They are incapable of checking their ego at their door. They know better than anyone. Some of them can be very damaging to a project. (too hard to explain in one post....)

I suspect that increased use of H1B and off shoring is not improving the success rate of projects. Soon they will conclude that developers world wide are dumb, lazy and incompetent. The Americans must have influenced them.

[cascadiance]

89. First of all MS owes much of its success to IBM...

When Microsoft started up they were nothing but Bill Gates and a few others that grabbed a pretty poor OS from some startup that was half baked that became MS-DOS, which really wasn't designed as a multi-purpose OS. CPM from Digital Research in those days was *far better* technically.

Bill Gates basically used his daddy's connection at IBM (he was a high level manager at the time there) to get IBM to OEM MS-DOS as it's OS to go with it's PC's. If it weren't for that deal, Bill Gates would have been a nobody in the history of computing, and we'd have some other OS behemoth besides Microsoft (or perhaps a better world with multiple OS vendors, etc. that isn't a monopoly).

Microsoft didn't take on IBM until it ditched OS/2 joint development effort and went out on it's own with Windows (and using it's cash cow MS-DOS to keep it going through those years that had already been made popular by IBM). It wasn't for quite a few years before Windows was a usable product and became standard. Without MS-DOS sales, they wouldn't have been able to fund that effort.

Microsoft has always had monopoly power on its side to help it in the marketplace. It's record as an "innovator" is pretty so-so at best.

I don't buy that software developers are less "mentoring" than other fields. If there is any such behavior, it is because that many of them don't want to mentor H1-B visa employees that will allow their employer to replace them with cheap labor. I made that mistake many years ago when I was "mentoring" some Indian contractors and later my contract wasn't renewed. I'm more concerned now that there aren't as many "entry-level" jobs for software developers any more that would allow us to mentor them. Companies can now pick and choose amongst the unemployed and picked those that are already well trained and experienced, because they can. Those tech support positions, etc. that many of us may have started at many years ago are now being outsourced or filled with H1-B visa people and now it is more *they* that are getting the ground-floor opportunities instead of domestic workers. Kids in college probably see this, and ask themselves why they should torture themselves competing with foreign workers at dirt pay to get started in this field.

The bottom line is that H1-B and off-shoring is about saving money. They figure that they can get equivalent engineers (often times they discover this isn't the case) by hiring off-shore. Companies are about "making money" as the current movie "The Corporation" keeps telling us. If we want them to do more than have that as a goal, we and our government need to change the rules to incent them to consider other things than just the short term bottom line. Unfortunately, this administration doesn't have an interest in doing that.

[flaminbats]

90. they are the ones we should be making citizens.

But why have an immigration policy? is it foreign aid, is it for American corporations..or is it for the good of the nation and all who come here?

When shall our country stop giving passes to all who want them, and start an immigration policy based on population growth. Every year we have lost population, let in this number of high-tech experts and political refugees as immigrants. Every year our population grows..we don't need immigration, legal or illegal!!

Unemployment, utility bills, the price of housing and healthcare are already high enough. When will we have an immigration policy, instead of money driven chaos?

[eridani]

97. Latest WashTech newsletter

Offshore Tracker: One Year Later
The Rush to Offshore Your Job Continues
By Roberta L. Wilson

"I had no idea my future was being offshored," said Marjan Foruzani, University of Washington intern, who implements one of WashTech's more time-consuming project's keeping track of offshored jobs, all of them from the technology and professional sectors. Like Foruzani, the WashTech Planning Council and staff were only guessing about the impact of offshoring until launching the Offshore Tracker one year ago.

In spring of 2004, WashTech decided it needed a way to quantify what it was sensing from its members for some time-jobs were being offshored at an alarming rate. WashTech knew Forrester Research had projected a large number of jobs would be offshored to other countries-some 3.3 million by 2015, and studies showed companies in the Northwest, for example, were currently offshoring about 15% of their work, with plans to "cautiously increase" this number. However, WashTech did not know what offshoring looked like on the ground from the worker's point of view. It wanted to know who is losing jobs to offshoring, what companies are doing it, and how many jobs are leaving the U.S.

To get a handle on the practice of laying off U.S. workers, outsourcing, and subsequently offshoring the jobs, WashTech, along with the Communications Workers of America Research Department, launched the Offshore Tracker. This is the first (and only) data-tracking tool to expose the depth of offshore outsourcing of "white-collar" work by collecting a wide range of data. The Offshore Tracker records not only the number of jobs moved offshore, but also the number of U.S. jobs lost (positions laid-off), U.S. locations of jobs lost, offshore locations of jobs moved, and types of jobs.

"I receive an average of a dozen notices of job layoffs each month," said Foruzani. "Workers from around the country send in 'offshore events,' which I substantiate from independent media resources. The number of jobs entered in our tracker is probably quite low compared to the number of jobs actually offshored. I can only substantiate about 25% of the event forms submitted each month simply because the remaining events are not public information yet. I also add information from research I've done independently from the event forms. Even then, we know the media isn't reporting every company's offshoring news. But I use the event forms to lead the direction of the research, and encourage people to send them in whether they have all the information or not."

The jobs that are eventually substantiated and tracked are not all software development or call center jobs. They include everything from systems architecture, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, accounting, medical imaging and transcription, financial analysis, research and development, journalism, management consulting, and even legal work.

"Offshoring is growing in many sectors and expanding to positions employees believed would always be safe. Almost every job now has some component that can be done offshore-companies know this, employees are beginning to realize this, and communities are starting to feel the effects of this move to cheaper labor pools. The Offshore Tracker is our way of trying to get a grasp on the issue and get as real information out as we can. We want to work toward some type of regulation and the data in the Offshore Tracker should assist in that goal," said Karen Estevenin of WashTech, who initially helped develop the Offshore Tracker and oversees its research and development.

As observers of offshoring have noted, the "big problem" is the mid-career professional, who is at risk of layoff after years of education and high-level training. Still, new graduates working and students like Foruzani are also in jeopardy; they may lose or never even get a job in the field for which they studied. Some students do not know what career to pursue given the trend of offshoring. For example, according to the Computing Research Association, enrollment in computer science and engineering programs dropped 23 percent from 2002 to 2003. Students are asking: Why major in computer science when technology jobs are headed offshore?

Offshore apologists say that the U.S. will retain management and research and innovation jobs; however, it should be clear that not everybody could be a researcher or innovator. Moreover, many of the patents for up-and-coming technology are not even held by U.S. inventors. Chinese inventors, for example, hold the largest number of patents for nanotechnology. Likewise, some U.S. companies, such as Microsoft, are building research facilities in other countries.

For Foruzani, tracking jobs lost is a way to earn credit at the University of Washington toward her degree in Political Science and English. But it is also a wake-up call and some cause for alarm. "I tell my friends to be careful. One of my best friends is graduating with a degree in information systems, and she will be doing computer programming and coding. As way of precaution, she is receiving her degree with a business emphasis. When our conversation reaches the topic of offshoring and I tell her about the research I am conducting and the information I have learned, she answers with a grim 'I know.' After working within the information systems field at a local company, she tells me that offshoring is a topic that most of her coworkers tend to avoid, which is disappointing because it is exactly what they should be discussing. It seems to me that many employees refuse to acknowledge the fact that offshoring does not discriminate-its effect will be felt in almost every sector, every position, and by every worker."

As far as the Offshore Tracker goes, Foruzani and WashTech will continue to follow the job loss. Karen Estevenin of WashTech notes, "This is already a predictor of future job loss. We hope Congress will do more than offer 'income protection' and retraining for skilled workers. Offshore outsourcing in this country can't be ignored anymore or simply dubbed a trend. We hope our efforts to stop offshoring will make a difference to our members, all workers, and students alike."

Offshore Tracker: The Data Tells the Story

Check out the Tracker: http://www.techsunite.org/offshore/

Total number of jobs tracked by the Offshore Tracker
Jobs Offshored: 356,166
Jobs Lost: 172,195

States most widely affected
California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington

Sectors of the economy most frequently listed on the Offshore Tracker (along with names within each sector)

Airline Transportation
Delta Airlines, United Airlines, U.S. Airway,

Books: Printing, Publishing,
Gale Thompson Group, Thomson West,

Commercial Physical and Biological Research
Biogen, CiVentiChem, Nobex

Computer Integrated Systems Design
Conexant Systems, Evolving Systems, 3Com

Computer Peripheral Equipment
Cadence, STMicroelectronic

Computer Processing and Data Preparation and Processing
Affiliated Computer Services, Quark, Sierra Atlantic, Unisys

Computer Programming Services
Electronic Data Systems (EDS), IBM, Perot Systems, Sun Microsystems

Computer Related Services not elsewhere classified
Earthlink, Keane, Siemens AG

Electronic Components
Delphi, Sony

Engineering Services
BE&K Engineering, Kensa

Financial
Bank of America, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Ocwen Financial, Sallie Mae

Health and Allied Services
Kaiser Permanente, McKesson Corporation

Insurance
Aetna, AIG, MetLife, Premera Blue Cross

Investment Advice
Ernst & Young, Fidelity Investments

Management/Management Consulting Services
Deloitte Consulting, Hewitt Associates

Pharmaceutical Preparations
Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer

Prepackaged Software
Microsoft, Oracle

Semiconductors and Related Services
Cypress Semiconductor, Intel

Telephone Communications
AT&T, MCI, Sprint, Verizon Wireless

Other Companies Who Offshored in the Past Year:
Anheiser Busch, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Best Western, Black & Decker, Chiquita Brands, Circuit City, Coach, Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Columbia House, Costco, FUBU, Gap, General Mills, Home Depot, ITT Educational Services, John Deere & Company, Johnson & Johnson, Land's End, Lowe's, Mattel, Maytag, Nestle, Office Depot, Orbitz, Pepsi, Princeton University, Reebok, Safeway, Sears, Sweetheart Cup Company, Target, Travelocity, and Washington Mutual

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