more on Tech: A 'hostile environment' for US natives????

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

I find this pretty interesting, in light of the fact that I'm a hiring
manager in San Francisco and have had job posts out for the last 4  
months
and *almost every single one* of the people who've responded are H-1Bs
looking for work.  (most of them have existing jobs and are looking for
new ones).  Transferring an H-1B from one employer to another is *not*
subject to the "cap" by the way, that's just for new entrants (people
convering from other visa types like F-1 Student Visas or entering
directly).

I would say almost 90% of the resumes I get are like this.

What's more, i'm on the CS Dept. advisory board at a major East Coast
university and their enrollment in CS (all students, *including* F-1s),
dropped something like 75% from the peak 2 years ago and is up a bit  
from
there this year it looks like.

This is *exactly* by the way, what happened when I was a CS/EE  
student in
1976.  The huge layoffs of the end of the Vietnam War told everyone  
"don't
go into Engineering".  So there were several *very* small classes after
that (I was in a year that was a little uptick after the smallest  
class a
year or two before).

However one thing was different then - no engineering outsourcing.   So
what happenned was there was a shortage of new grads in 1979/80 when I
graduated.  The result was I doubled my salary every 18 months for the
first 6 years I was working (from $18K in 1978 at my first job to over
$60K only 4 years later).  This was great, I bought a house, etc.
Everyone I worked with did the same thing.

However that won't happen this time, because instead of raising  
salaries,
companies are going to outsource the jobs to Asia.   Its happening in  
big
numbers just a few miles from here, where Oracle lays off thousands of
people while hiring thousands in Bangalore.

For the most part, the people layed off *do* find jobs, because our
economy generates *so many* of them.  Be glad we don't live in Europe,
where new jobs are created less often than blue moons.

An interesting and as yet uncovered *anywhere* that I've seen fact is  
that
its become much harder for an H-1b to get a Green Card now.  Major
employers (like Oracle I hear) have dropped getting green cards for H-1b
employees becuase of it.  (New regulations went into effect this year
apparently, the new system is called "FAST" or soemthing like that.)

In any event, this is going to flush a lot of 4-6 year H-1b people  
out of
the system, and soon.  I'd expect to see major drops this year and  
next as
people "time out".  You can't stay on an H-1b beyond 6 years.   That  
will
cause *a lot* more demand for new ones.  The fact that the caps are down
may cause a major population loss in the Bay Area over the next few  
years
(Santa Clara County already has a major population loss since the Dot
bomb, this may extend that).

Interesting times,
  -jcp-


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