Silicon Valley Engineer Testifies on Need to Retain Talented High-Tech Students and Professionals

http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/releases/2008/061208.asp

by felipe • 18 years ago

8 30 18 years ago

Blahdy blah blah blahdy blah blah blah lower my labor costs please kthxbye.

timr9• 18 years ago

I'm torn. We already pay for foreign citizens to get graduate degrees from US schools (via NIH, NSF, DARPA funding, etc.), so why shouldn't we encourage them to stay here after they're done?

But yeah, there need to be provisions in these laws to ensure that foreign employees are paid no less than Americans.

cconstantine7• 18 years ago

I see no reason for this. If someone from <not-USA> is interviewing for a development position, and quite simply isn't as good why not pay them less?

They may even be technically talented, but if they have a hard time communicating in the office's native language that's gonna hurt everyone's productivity and business owners should be allowed to lower compensation for that.

I understand they are willing to work more for less, but they have some significant hurtles to overcome as it is. We are a nation of immigrants based on fair competition.

geebee3• 18 years ago

I actually disagree with the notion that the US pays for the graduate educations of foreign nationals. This is a misconception that is easy to exploit in a population that thinks of graduate school as something like undergraduate, law, business, or medical school.

Graduate students in engineering are generally producers of wealth for universities. For example, I recently left a job where I was paid over 100K a year (in addition to benefits and stock) to write code that built mathematical optimization models based on data stored in large RDBMSs. Now, I don't actually think the pay was especially great considering the skill set (and I got a hefty raise when I left), but I know foreign grad students who were doing essentially the same thing for a research stipend that probably amounted to less than 20K/year, no benefits, stock, nothing (other than the possibility of a PhD after many years of servitude). If these folks had the right to leave the university without screwing up their visas, they'd probably be making six figures in private industry like me (I left once I got my MS).

Sure, yeah, I suppose we should try to keep these folks here when they graduate, but the notion that the US has somehow put itself out to provide a grad education for foreign engineering students is baloney. We take them in precisely at the moment they become net contributors, and not a moment earlier. Universities save huge $$$ by indenturing grad students from overseas.

felipe6• 18 years ago

> We already pay for foreign citizens to get graduate degrees from US schools

I think this is a tiny minority, and in fact foreigners don't even have access to subsidized loans (I know that because I fully paid for my education by myself and with personal loans -- I definitely looked for other kind of loans and grants)

cbryan• 18 years ago

I don't think its about lowering labor costs. A highly-skilled foreign born worker can still command as much as his native born counterpart.

I do think that this is about retaining talented workers and bolstering our knowledge-centric economy. These people are motivated enough to come to the US and succeed, we should try to keep them.

cconstantine7• 18 years ago

I agree. It's easy to find people who kinda know how to program. It's really hard to find talented programmers. Why tell employer's they can't hire someone because they happen to have citizenship somewhere else?

Besides, one of the bases of capitalism is that in any trade both parties should gain. If a company wants to hire someone at salary $X that means the company expects to get $X+K value out of that person. Assuming the company bets right that means we are adding value to the American economy.

felipe6• 18 years ago

I have never met any high-tech immigrant worker who complained about making less than others. I, for one, know for a fact that my salary was compatible to other with similar skills and experience

Maybe you are talking about offshored jobs, that's a whole different story. If anything, we (immigrant workers) are helping to keep jobs in the US!

bbgm2• 18 years ago

Don't know about the majority, but I've always been paid a bit more than industry average

felipe6• 18 years ago

The reason I posted this article is because I have first-hand experience as a foreign-born worker who immigrated via a work-visa and eventually got my masters here in the US.

The fact is that the immigration process for high-skilled workers is very long, cumbersome, and one must be pretty motivated to stay. I know many high-skilled people who were not able to stay even though they wanted to.

Silicon Valley Engineer Testifies on Need to Retain Talented High-Tech Students and Professionals

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