H-1B Workers Not Best Or Brightest, Study Says

[Teamster Jeff]

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Managers of high-tech companies insist they need more H-1B visas for foreign IT workers to ensure access to the best and brightest workforce. But a study released on Thursday finds that imported IT talent is often less talented than U.S. workers.

The study, published by the Economic Policy Institute and conducted by Norman Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California in Davis, compares U.S. and foreign IT workers' salaries, rates of PhD awards, doctorates earned and employment in research and development to determine whether those admitted to the U.S. under the H-1B visa program have skills beyond those of U.S. IT workers.

Based on Matloff's analysis, there's no evidence that those granted H-1B visas offer exceptional talents.
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The report concludes that the H-1B program and related work programs are not making the U.S. companies more innovative and are in some ways making them less so.
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http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/h1b/h-1b-workers-not-best-or-brightest-study/240149839

[Skittles]

1. domestic IT workers know this all too well

yes INDEED

[Teamster Jeff]

2. I don't work in IT

But I can recognize a scam when I see one

[jeff47]

3. It's so shocking that the "best and brightest" don't sign up for a program limited to 6 years

that requires them to move to another country and then leave that country at the end of the program.

Who coulda thought?

[Skittles]

4. the same applies to offshore

or, as they are known in IT, "cheapshore" - the "talent" American companies claim they so desperately need is vastly overrated but it certainly is cheap

[hay rick]

5. Keeping IT salaries down.

From the article:

Critics of the H-1B program see it as a way for companies to keep IT wages low, to discriminate against experienced U.S. workers and to avoid labor law obligations.

In his examination of the presumed correlation between talent and salary, Matloff observes that Microsoft has been exaggerating how much it pays foreign workers. Citing past claims by the company that it pays foreign workers "$100,000 a year to start," Matloff says the data shows that only 18% of workers with software engineering titles sponsored for green cards by Microsoft between 2006 and 2011 had salaries at or above $100,000.

"By contrast, 34% of Microsoft's green card sponsorees with financial analyst titles made over $100,000, as did 71% of its lawyers in the PERM data," he said. "It would seem that, counter to its rhetoric, engineers are not top priority for Microsoft..."