Filed under: h1, immigration | Tags: h1b, India, IT, maverick, off-shoring, Outsourcing
A great blogger is asking my opinion on the opportunity in India right now for IT professionals. My opinion is, as it was before, that the opportunity in the USA is better still. My reply is so long that I’d rather post it, as opposed to replying to a comment.
Opportunity, sure.
if it is so splendid right now in India, why are you here ? I will venture a guess, and it’s only a guess …
A comparable job in India will still not pay you a salary comparable in USD.
A comparable job in India simply does not exist, because here in the USA, people arrive to work at what … 8 or 9am, and by 5:10pm there is nobody but the night guard to be found in the building.
In India managers work the people to their last nerve. They push them to the edge of insanity from cumulated stress. Push push push. The person, the YOU that sits in front of the monitor gets diminished to your willingness to spend 16 of your 24 waking hours at the office. Not one single opportunity to tell you how insignificant you are, and how countless scores of others are waiting in line for your job is ever passed up.
Not for one moment am I ignoring the sudden rise of what has been happening in India lately. I was a programmer in Silicon Valley right through the IT Bubble of Y2K. Believe it or not, it felt exactly like what India is feeling now. something like this WHHHOOOOEEEEEEE … we are all invinsible …. !!!
But then again, plenty of the good people participating in this IT boom in India right now, actually lived through it here in the Valley too. How ironic. To go through that twice. I wouldn’t want to.
Granted, and I have to make this note: I have not been in India, I have no idea what life there was like before, and I have no idea what life there is like now. but my friend is there as we speak, in Hyderabad. And the amount of People from India who are applying yearly for their H1B visas (some through Multiple employers!!!!) make me believe that the USA still reigns supreme.
Filed under: h1 | Tags: , consultants, consulting, h1, h1-b, h1b, immigrant work, immigrant workers, IT, off-shore, off-shoring, Offshoring, out source, Outsourcing
Until recently I was part of one of these famous Indian Consulting firms that provide outsourcing and offshoring services at considerable discounts. So often do we hear and read about disgruntled American born IT workers who complain that American jobs are stolen by immigrants. Not true my friends, not true. For most American workers who are willing to work for $x, you will find an eager immigrant willing to work for $(x-1). In this country where life itself is driven by where you can find the lowest price, why should that not be the case also in the workplace?
Immigrants land here because the opportunity in America – even in a recession – is much greater than opportunities in home countries. We come here and our willingness to stick together, live together, minimize expenses and maximize savings is what helps us rise to the top even though our earnings are at the bottom. For the most part, we do not have any privilege to Social benefits. Once a job is lost, visa status is lost, and if we don’t find a new job in record time, we are forced to leave the country. So we keep quiet. We eat your meanness at work, we bow our heads and keep working. We take the jobs that you don’t want and we survive. This of course reaches far beyond the coveted IT jobs.
Close to two decades now, IT and web related technology has been driven largely by immigrant workers. So why suddenly all the complaints also about off-shoring? Is the work not going to it’s original owners now as it always has? When we are in America, you keep the promotions and managerial positions among your own. You keep the executive positions well out of our reach-with that famous glass ceiling. So you sit in your executive chairs and watch us work. Except this time the workers went home and took the work with them. This time employing their own countrymen who for decades have been living in poverty that even the poorest Americans have yet to have a taste of.
Filed under: h1 | Tags: f1, green card, greencard, h1, h1-b, h1b, international student, international students
Tech jobs and their corresponding H1-B visa issues are so often written and spoken about. Americans feel taken advantage of and cheated out of jobs by cheap workers from other countries. Immigrants simply arrive here recognizing that there is an opportunity to capitalize on the laziness of others. When an American born person is willing to work for $x, you will find an eager immigrant willing to work for $(x-1).
It seems that instead of considering lower salaries, some people here prefer to remain unemployed and taking social benefits (for which by the way H1-B immigrants and international students are not eligible). Are those social security checks really still larger than simply a lower salary check?
It would be very nice if the country could treat immigrants better who spend close to and often over $100k on their educations in US universities, who keep the rules and never work illegally.
Would you say it’s fair that law-abiding international students should enjoy easier access to H1-B visas and greencards?
