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Why Visa Workers in US

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by michael.myers1

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Why is it that various sources report that 1 out of 10 in the US are actually Americans working within the telecommunications industry in the United States? Why is our unemployment increasing within the telecommunications space? Why is it that our own government allows for tax breaks for companies within the United States to outsource and/or bring in those talents?

This discussion is in support of a dissertation topic.

19 replies

by michael.myers1

How would driving down salaries impact the cost of bringing in Visa holders that need housing, cars and unexepcted contracting costs? Is it cheaper to hire local compared to contrator fees that are typical part of a Visa'd employee?

by jmgarvin

Long story short, for the most part companies are doing it because HR is ruining IT.

However, there is a problem. Recently we were hiring for some positions and the candidates we got were all over the board. We had some folks that had a clue, some that were meh, and then some that were down right ignorant.

The scary part is that our HR does a GOOD job of filtering (hand filter a good number of apps).

At the bigger companies, you're lucky if you can make it past the initial filter, let alone past the HR drones that are totally clueless.

by michael.myers1

Do HR's focus on accredidation of University/College transcripts? Or do they include off-shore non-accredidated Universities/Colleges?

by dadspad

He was asked directly why Microsoft was hiring so many HB1 employees, he denied looking for specifically for employees outside the USA. But, under more questioning he just said Microsoft hired the highest graduates from USA Universites and that they tended to be from other countries. He did not care where the highest graduates were born only that they were the best graduates.

Does that help with your question? Industy wants young graduates that are at the top of their graduation class.

The truth is middle class in the USA is declining. It will be very sad if this does not turn around soon.

by charliespencer

If it was the same one on NPR last week, they also mentioned that enrollment in college IT / IS / CSci degrees is down almost 70% since the first dot-com bubble burst. Fewer graduates coming out of U.S. colleges means you don't have a choice but to look overseas.

by dadspad

but what impressed me was that Bill Gates insisted he hired (almost exclusively) from US Univerities and only the top graduates and would hire them at competitive salaries, creating teams around them. He said these teams would create a lot of US citizen jobs.

It did seem to point out the big company with 'Global Economy' all it thinks about, has a big disregard on their impact on the US economy and destroying of high paying jobs in the USA. Despite the fact that if it was not for a strong USA economy, they never would have been as successful as they are.

I am not saying that Microsoft should not hire the top graduates in the field they are looking at. College students will train for fields where they stand the best chance on obtaining a good paying job. Unfortunately, the IT field is not is not hiring a lot of graduates at this time. Too many graduate and salaries get too competitive.

Why can't big companies like Microsoft, Baxter, etc. promote scholarships for bright US kids? Encourage a USA economy that helped their careers and companies so well.

by oz_media

In a deregulated marketplace, the providers are forced to compete for price. Americans have complained about monopolistic costs for too long and the government did something about it, deregulation.

FORCING companies to lower costs also brings in competition, when Americans aren't perpared to work for less, in order to pay less, the company has no choice but to either close the doors (thus recreating a monopoly by the infrastructure owner) or to look elswhere for competitive salaries. In many cases people are willing to work in america for less money than the norm, but not American citizens.

It's pretty easy to see the relation really.

the same thing happened in Canada, with a few exceptions. Canada's provincial phone companies were once mainly owned and operated by a group called Stentor. Stentor was majority owned and operated by GTE in the USA (now we see the other side of outsourcing). So while many Canadians were employed provincially, the money and controlling interest of most of Canada's telcommunications monopolies was in the USA.

WHen the CRTC deregulated our services, they waited several years after the US did the same, so as to see the failures and needs to be put into place; such as the CLEC BS that really screwed up out of state calling for several years.

Our deregulation included an act that all competitive companies must be majority Canadian owned and operated. So it put the playing field back on Canadian soil. We don't get some of the wild deals you do in the US, but it is a little lower (local calling) with LD calls incredibly lower. People still get paid well, allowing companies to hire locals and users still get a better deal overll, with more money staying in our country instead of going south to the USA.

So we accepted a slight drop in price, with provincial companies working provincially for local services. It's kind of a comfortable medium, and the work stays here for the most part and there's no need to bring in foreign workers at low salaries.

As for other outsourcing, ISP's tech support etc. It's again due to competition and demand for lower price. If AB company already owns an infrastructure, they can easily beat our CD company's attempts to build by offering lower prices. If people only pay the lowest price, then CD company doesn't have a hope in hell.

Once people start to demand service and quality instead of lower prices, it will come back home, as long as they are forced to compete for price, you either have to accept earning less or having that job given to someone else who will work for less in order to keep the competition competitive.

by dadspad

there are plenty of places in the US that have workers the will work for lower wages. There are many foreign companies that are bringing manufacturing to the US, mostly rural areas where excellent labor is both less expensive and plentiful. It is US companies that is being criticized for not doing the same thing.

I much prefer quality over cheap prices in most things. I must be an exception. :)

by oz_media

Price over quality rules, no matter how corrupt or immoral a company is. Two words (or maybe it's one) WAL-MART.

Any country who supports a company who faces several dozen lawsuits per WEEk for abusing workers, exploiting offshore workers, forcing lower pay and longer hours on third worl country manufacturer's/workers and worst of all, is NOT offering the lowest prices as tehy like to advertise, is one country that just doesn't give a rats arse, as long as they save 20 cents and don't have to go to two different stores to shop.

Lazy, inward thinking, selfish, unaware, whatever, or all of the above.

people see and read the WM horror stories all the time, but continue to buy their second rate crap because it was 50 cents more and a 4 block drive to buy it at a smaller store.

Some people even defend them by saying how many locals they employ, well those locals once ran their own stores, before WM pushed them out of business.

It's your society, nto some individuals that dictate this stuff, and Americans want the lowest price, at any cost. If it is a dollar less, everyone can turn a blind eye as to why or how it is less.

by oz_media

Price over quality rules, no matter how corrupt or immoral a company is. Two words (or maybe it's one) WAL-MART.

Any country who supports a company who faces several dozen lawsuits per WEEk for abusing workers, exploiting offshore workers, forcing lower pay and longer hours on third worl country manufacturer's/workers and worst of all, is NOT offering the lowest prices as they like to advertise, is one country that just doesn't give a rats arse, as long as they save 20 cents and don't have to go to two different stores to shop.

Lazy, inward thinking, selfish, unaware, whatever, or all of the above.

people see and read the WM horror stories all the time, but continue to buy their second rate crap because it was 50 cents more and a 4 block drive to buy it at a smaller store.

Some people even defend them by saying how many locals they employ, well those locals once ran their own stores, before WM pushed them out of business.

It's a general mindset within many societies today society, not just some individuals that dictate this stuff. Americans always seem to want the lowest price, at any cost. It's almost like people feel it shows economic might to have such low prices for everything, as if they are owed a better deal for being American. If it is a dollar less, everyone can turn a blind eye as to why or how it is less. In the same breath, they will often complian that local employers don't pay enough or that jobs are outsourced.

by michael.myers1

IN a recent Gartner article they pointed out the fact the firms actually pay more for hiring contracted Visa workers than not. It aslo stated that firms are shifting due to quality issues related to both hiring of Visa workers and talented cadidates fresh out of school. For the creativity value then hiring college graduates does produce more but lacks tremendously in execution, which also drives up costs.

Whats your impression of quality versus deployment versus volume?

by mark9009

This is pretty basic stuff. Offshoring produces volume results at a reduced cost. Quality pales, but today's "get it done now" forces the quality to the side. Manager makes the deadline, under budget, gets a bonus, moves on. Let the next guy deal with it. When the results are subpar and need to be fixed, the reverse engineering costs soar. So IT/IS has to prepare a history lesson (again)as to you get what you pay for.

by oz_media

then again I could always search fo rthe article myself.

As fr as Visa workers, is the total cost higher due to medical, sick leave, training? In teh case of WalMart you must agree that skills are nto required, English is not really THAT important but the ability to smile and nod maybe helpful, as for students, who teh hell is going to school so they can work at WalMart?

College grads that pop in here are complaining that the only job they can find is WalMart and that they don't want to waste teh time, effort and money to earn a job at minum wage.

As for existign American citizens, if they were willing to work for minimum wage and didn't complain about working with foreign workers, they may be onto something.

I see some conflict in teh statement, especially with respect to VISA workers costing more. For a company actively seekign to bring in outside, skilled support, as in the case of IT etc. they wuold have greater expenses than WalMart would by hiring people just looking for an excuse to livein America. Such Visa workers are lining up at the border, not so for say an experienced tech from Mumbai.

if WalMart hires US citizens at minum wage, do they stay long? Doubt it. therefore constant retraining and rehiring costs would be incurred. Whereas a visa worker would generally be more complacent and less retraining would be required, lower turnover.

As for HS grads or College students grads, foget about it, give em two weeks and they are done, unless you pull out the big bucks.

Yes, I feel that quality will be back in style, but not until some quality stores have a piece of the pie, for people to see what they used to get and what they miss for cheap prices. Note also, the prices aren't always cheaper, in fact are the same if not mroe expensive in many cases, WalMart is. If the price is competitive, generally the proiduct is poorly manufactured or substandard. This is due to people wanting lower prices, sellers being forced to cut corners etc.

One guy stated that he had to fire his 15 man strong, US workforce and seek cheap overseas (China) manufacturing in order to fulfill WalMart's 'demands', not requests. He was told that unless they can make '$X' margin, they will stop selling his product.

The big stores forces the cottage industry (America's foundation)out of business? Well done, and they get supported for this, by millions of shoppers and those great
government breaks.

Sorry, just ranting now. Anyway, I would like to see mroe of Gartners stats and investigate how they wer derived or what they pertain to exactly.

by Former member

I buy at Walmart. It is true that they often have lower prices for inferior goods. I buy there because they are four blocks away and thus the closest store to where I live.

One of the items I purchase is a five pound block of cheese. I can not find this item anywhere else that I have looked. The price was $13 and change. One day the price rose to over $18 and has stayed there.

This event caused me to take a look at the pricing structure of Walmart. The stores prices are rising faster than many other stores and in many cases the cost at Walmart is now higher than at Smiths or other stores for food goods. Other items are also often higher: I had to replace the stereo in my car, the one I wanted was $99 at Walmart and $79 at Pep-Boys.

Add in the factors of the long checkout lines or if you need to ask for something many of the employees can't answer because they do not have a grasp of English (poor customer service). What do you do? I have been going to other stores.

by oz_media

As noted in my post above, WalMart actually RAISED prices when they took over Woolco here, but not enough people paid attention and just focused on their signs during the rennovation phase "watch out for falling prices".

I fought for the old price and won, no way I was paying WalMart's price when the store they took over was cheaper. They are a sham, my brother used to run the law firm they they used for many issues, he ended up supporting the hoards of people suing WalMart instead, after losing all faith in who WalMart was. Now he represnts neither, different corporation altogether.

by michael.myers1

The only real issue I see with the Wal Mart scenario is that talent doesn't have to pay for a $30,000 a year education to get the job...or do they?

by oz_media

First of all lets look at yoru oxymoron, yuo mentioned WalMart and talent in the same sentence. The less English you speak at WalMart, the better, they can pay less.

yes, I have a personal issue with them too, I worked a year of my automotive apprenticeship at Woolco's Auto centre, they were bought out by WalMart and WalMart didn't want trained staff in the new "tire and oil" shop.

No biggie for me, I was back in school then and had already arranged to finish my apprenticeship at FORD. But once thing I noticed was that while rennovating, WalMart had signs everywhere saying "watch out for falling prices" a funny one during the construction phase, I suppose. What happened though was that MOST prices were increased, not reduced. I had a bunch of HT stuff on hold at the old prices and, with a call or two from my attorney (who has ahistory of fighting WalMart issues), had WalMart honour the old pricing, as it was put on hold while they were the legal owners of the stock.

The "WalMart's cheaper" mantra is complete BS. They are only cheaper NOW because theyu took over the real bargain stores ,who were not exploiting workers but operating on lower profit margins instead.

WalMart is smpooke and mirrors crap, a complete farce of a company, yet so many believe in them that it's like debunking religion: regardless of how ridiculous and dated the BS seems, people still have faith and buy into it because they are so scared of being wrong or havign to make a change in their ways.

by dadspad

that is Walmart. I am a comparative shopper. I do shop at WM to get a better price for the same item that cost more somewhere else. Quality there is not an issue. As far as WM wiping out other store, not counting anybody WM bought, it is their retail planning that is at fault. There is nothing new with a bigger store coming in and competing with local merchants. For the locam merchants to survive they find a better way to compete. If you are a small competitor that sales general high selling electronics, then any big retail store can outsale you. A local business is in better shape to judge what local people will buy, then find items that is too low a value for stores such as WM to carry. Retail is a business like any other, competition is what you should expect, it is not easy. K-Mart and other stores have been doing this longer than WM.

Any good shopper will tell you that WM uses loss leaders just like any other big retailer. Put something cheap in the isle, then the customer thinks everything is cheap and pays more for another product. That is retailing. [Walmart hint, shop online, the prices are often less expensive and can be picked up at the local WM store.]

I also shop SAM's and Costco, and no apoligies.

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