What is the Tech Jobs Situation in Late 2004? 1138
CareerConfused asks: "Today I came across an ad in the NY Times, put out by Microsoft, Micron, Level 3 (among others) that claimed that the H-1B visa quota for FY2005 has already expired (it claims the quota expired the first day of FY2005, which started just about a month back). OK. On the one hand, we have
stories of techies not finding jobs; and on the other, we have stories from businesses which claim that lack of H1s is killing their business, as well as public advocacy (like that ad in NYT). So, what is it? Are we in another boom, with jobs going a-begging and companies requiring more H1s to fill them? How come I haven't noticed this in the form of a fatter paycheck (or an Aeron chair, or a fooseball table in the cubicle)?" What have you experienced in your searches for technology-based jobs? Is it still hard to sell your hard-earned skills or are things looking up?
While its one thing to claim that the lack of H1Bs is killing your business because Americans don't want to move to Fort Wayne, Indiana. It's quite another to say that you can't find a job in Silicon Valley. What's needed is an overall view of how tech jobs are doing across the country. What areas are in desperate need of technical skills and what areas are suffering from a shortage of jobs?
still tight in Houston. (Score:3, Informative)
they're doing fine (Score:2, Informative)
Looks Pretty Good From Here (Score:5, Informative)
1. Google's still screaming for people to join them (well, OK, they then axe highly-competent people during their interview process, but I'm sure it's for the best
2. When I was looking for a job in late August, I ended up in a competitive bidding situation between two companies;
3. The company for which I work now (which has a fabulous environment, IMHO), is looking to hire people, so far with no great success. Of course, we're also looking for pretty decent people
It's getting better, I think.
Jobs (Score:2, Informative)
personally doing great (Score:1, Informative)
No no no.... (Score:3, Informative)
What it IS, is that companies want to fill CURRENT US Jobs (Hear: YOUR job) with an H1 worker who will work for less pay...
Want a better job? Quit, denounce your citizenship in the US, move to India - file for H1B visa and wait for the 2006 roundup. HA!
Seriously, though - in a previous
Market's still a little shallow in DFW area... (Score:3, Informative)
D.C. Area is doing well (Score:3, Informative)
Actually...everything I just said is a lie. There are no jobs in D.C. or Northern Virginia. Stay away.
Healthcare IT is doing well (Score:3, Informative)
The tricky part is hiring well qualified individuals, which seem harder to pick up these days. I'd recommend the field for anyone looking for a job. Healthcare organizations are pretty stable during economic downturns (people still get sick) and you get to feel like you're making a real difference in people's lives.
The Bay Area isn't *that* expensive... (Score:3, Informative)
There are a few other high items (gas is expensive), but beyond that things can be had here for the same price or lower than elsewhere in the country. And Bay Area salaries *are* higher than elsewhere, not to mention that this place is where all the tech companies are. If you're cool with renting, living here isn't out of reach by any means.
Re:Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course the system is gamed, but it's not as if there are no mechanisms to prevent sweatshop hiring.
Re:D.C. Area is doing well (Score:5, Informative)
Solution: retrain! She went out to some temp agencies and farmed her resume around, then taught herself Visio when a client requested it. She spent the last few weeks down in the District building contacts and making money while working on a Post Office project. If you want jobs, you can find jobs - just don't expect people to throw money into your lap as per the bubble-days of the 90s.
For those not in the know, a security clearance is a pre-punched meal-ticket - and you don't have to be in DC or Virginia. If you're able to find work with someone who's willing to sponsor your security clearance process, and you've no particular qualms about working for The Man, take it. A Secret clearance will keep you employed anywhere in the nation. A Top Secret brings a higher salary and even more options to choose from, though laying hands on one is sometimes more a matter of fate than desire.
Re:Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:5, Informative)
If that's happening, then you already have legal options without needing new legislation for tariff's on imported labor: H-1B's are, by law, supposed to be paid in line with US workers -- one of the hurdles in getting a H-1B is getting the state's department of labor to sign off that the wage level is kosher. Most of the stories you here about dramatically underpaid foreign H1-B's turn out to be urban legends.
I was a H1-B for six years, and I was always paid in line with U.S. workers, both at my company and in the industry in general.
Actually that's untrue (Score:4, Informative)
As noted in a footnote to the article), U.S. employers *must* pay foreign workers the prevailing wage for their job fields and show that qualified U.S. workers are not being passed over.
In my experience the BCIS (formerly INS) has pretty stringent about these requirements and as a result companies end up paying H1 workers the *same* amount as they would pay a domestic worker. Please do the research or atleast RTFA.
Re:Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I live/work in the SF Bay Area... (Score:2, Informative)
Apparently the mid-west is in fact "tech-filled" at least from what I've seen. The cost of living and the cost of doing business out here is just cheaper I guess.
Re:Actually that's untrue (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah- but the H-1b is a new graduate when the US techie has 10 years of experience, therefore 25k-35k is the going wage for the experience and the business still saves money. And in my experience, getting the BCIS to actually investigate anything requires several months of 8-hour-a-day work researching and showing your eveidence to different beaurucrats.
In my experience the BCIS (formerly INS) has pretty stringent about these requirements and as a result companies end up paying H1 workers the *same* amount as they would pay a domestic worker. Please do the research or atleast RTFA.
http://www.ortech.org/ [ortech.org] has a spreadsheet where they show that Intel pays it's H-1bs EXACTLY 90%(Minimum Going Wage For Entry Level)+$1- in over 4000 Labor Condition Applications. So no- you are wrong with this conclusion.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:3, Informative)
If he was having issues as severe as you make them out to be, then I can really only find the fault to lie with him and his now ex-wife for not making any attempt to solve the issues at hand. In all truth, most enlisted personnel will have a more stable career, with fewer PCS moves over the course of a 20 year career, due to the requirement for longer time spent at a duty station before you are eligible to apply for a new assignment.
While I do agree wholeheartedly that the military is not the answer for everyone, which is why it remains an all volunteer force, and will most likely stay that way for purposes of maintaining morale and espirit de corps, anyone who is consider joining or is the SO of someone who is already enlisted really needs to spend a lot of time thinking about whether or not they can handle this unique and IMO, rewarding style of life.
As a disclaimer, I enlisted 2 years ago, as USAF Comm-Comp Programming. I've never had to pick up butts, do weeds&seeds, or run a buffer. To date I've worked with Oracle Forms/Reports and Java in a J2EE environment. But, as I mentioned earlier, it really isn't for everyone. Seems to me like it wasn't for your current wife.
Point to the jobs (Score:3, Informative)
Put your hyperlink where your mouth is, and point to the jobs. That can be either on your company website careers section (don't expect people to find it via google for quite a while), or the listings at your preferred online job site if you do that kind of thing. Otherwise we'll assume you're just blowing smoke like most of the corporate executives are doing.
Re:Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't work that way. There are laws in place that forbid companies from hiring foreign workers at a lower wage than local force. Any company doing what you describe is breaking the law.
Have you ever considered that some of us are just BETTER than locals for the job offered?
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:2, Informative)
Re:To avert the usual avalanche (Score:5, Informative)
If you're gonna shoot out numbers at least endeaver to make them remotely accurate. The visa caps varied over the last six years:
1998 65000
1999 115000
2000 195000
2001 195000
2002 195000
2003 65000
2004 65000
This gives us a total of 895,000 total H1Bs over the last six years. I'll be generous and use your figure that only 60% were IT specific, which gives us: 537,000. Now, you idiotically compared your total figure to the number of people in this country to come to the conclusion that your 270k number (which I've already proven is completely wrong) is statistically insignificant. Your comparison is retarded. That 300 million includes people who don't even try to work, like INFANTS for example.
Why don't you compare it to the number of IT workers in the country? Here, let me do it for you: there are roughly 3.3 million IT workers and 537,000 H1Bs which gives us a percentage of (537k/3.3m * 100) 16.2%. Hmmm...16.2 percent doesn't seem insignificant to me. For example, if I told you not to go into a specific bar because you had a 16.2% chance of having your head blown off, would you? Didn't think so.
Oh, and before you tell me that these people are out in 3 years, think again. It costs them all of about $500 to have a lawyer get them a 3 year extension.
Anyway, just wanted to say STFU about shit you know nothing about. Oh, and the moderators should be ashamed for modding this idiot up.
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:3, Informative)
Silicon Valley Jobs (Score:5, Informative)
Two years ago, the company laid off a few programmers, then six months later, gave everyone a 7% paycut so that they didn't have to lay off more programmers. People took the paycuts in stride.
A year ago, many of the people who took paycuts, left the company. The company hired people to replace them. Lots of qualified candidates applied for the open positions, but the company actually had to pay the new people more than the people who had left the company. It took about two weeks to fill the positions.
This past year, the company saw a huge upswing in business and needed to hire more people. The were two hiring phases, one in the spring and one in the fall. In the spring, there were lots of candidates again, but few qualified ones. The ones that were hired demanded a salary that was ~10% greater than people hired for the same position a year before. It took about six weeks to fill the positions. In the fall hiring, there were far fewer candidates and very few qualified ones. Salaries were still about 10% higher than the previous year. Not all positions have been filled after eight weeks.
Re:H1B needs (Score:1, Informative)
Well, it's pretty damn typical of IT jobs markets for there to be plenty of bright people who want to gain new skills, but no employers willing to hire them because they don't yet have the skills. Wake up already.
We simply have a problem finding the relevant experience we need, it's that simple.
Then grow the experience. It's that simple.
Re:D.C. Area is doing well (Score:3, Informative)
And theres the BIG IF. I found a lot of jobs where the HR would have been happy to have me, but they needed someone who could get to work right away and not sit around for 6 months pushing unimportant papers around.
Since you can't get a clearance by yourself (why not?), you're pretty much at the mercy of the BIG IF. And trust me, if anyone shows up with the needed clearance, unless you're super wonder dog AND the other guy's brain turned to jelly in a freak accident, you're not getting the job.
the regulations have changed (Score:2, Informative)
The actual regulation says that the H1B worker must be paid at least 95% of the prevailing wage. The company can provide any prevailing wage information....even their own data.
If you think H-1B visa workers being underpaid is an urban legend, peruse the LCA database [flcdatacenter.com] at your leisure. Look at some of the huge Indian bodyshops (they are the worst offenders at misusing US visa regulations), and decide for yourself if they are underpaying their workers ($38K for a programmer?)
The reason the cap was hit by the first day is these bodyshop hoarde the visas, which flaunts the spirit of the visa regulations. The idea behind the H1B visas were to give employers access to specialized workers, not to allow foreign companies the ability to import their own workers while putting our domestic technical workers out to pasture.
Oh yeah, some Congressmen are trying to attach legislation to the Omnibus spending bill that would effectively double the H1B visa cap. Read more about that at Techsunite [techsunite.org]
Sympathy for you living in Cincinnati... (Score:3, Informative)
To make the best of a shit place, I would recommend:
Ambar Indian Curry house in Clifton. Simply the best Indian I've ever had, and that includes from my home country of Britain. Chicken Tikka Massala to die for.
The Comet Pub, somewhere in the west of Cinti. Excellent Bluegrass, and they have Newcastle Brown Ale on tap, along with quite a few other beers.
Go to the Railway Museum and check it out. Very nicely restored. Park downtown and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge (actually the prototype for the Brooklyn one) and then around the North Kentucky town, across that bridge and back up into Cinti.
River boat cruise is definitely worth it, but this was at the end of my prison sentence(bb2dw) work there, so watching popcorn pop was relatively exciting by then, too....
Oktoberfest over in the town across the river (can't remember its name) on the Mainstrasse, and also the Oktoberfest in downtown Cinti, but this is a lot poorer.
That's all I could find that was notable in Cinti in 18 months. Oh! The downtown library is fairly rocking, though
Good luck, I hope you make it out of there without losing your brain. Not all the midwest is that awful.
Dr Fish
Re:If i only were a moderator.... (Score:3, Informative)
STRATCOM = Strategic Command, or the old SAC
ACC = Air Combat Command
AFSPC = Space Command
AFSOC = Air Force Special Operations Command
AMC = Air Mobility Command
PACAF = U.S. Pacific Air Force
USAFE = U.S. Air Forces Europe
and of course, the 11th Wing, which is in DC.
OIF = Operation Iraqi Freedom
OEF = Operation Enduring Freedom
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:4, Informative)
Well, here in Philadelphia... (Score:3, Informative)
So I picked up and moved to Philadelphia, and the market's completely different. The last two companies I've worked for cannot find enough qualified people to fill the positions they have open. The first company spent 3 months looking for candidates without much luck, and we're a month into our search here.
Philadelphia's no great shakes, in my opinion, but the pay is great (even with the higher taxes) and the companies are on the whole good to their employees.
I'm glad I made the move. I think things are picking up, but this time around, management is more cautious about who they hire and how many people they hire. That's a good thing. And the poster who wants to see the "big" perks like fancy chairs and swedish go-go dancers at every desk needs to get a clue. The work you're doing should have its own intrinsic value to you, which is why you do it. You shouldn't be getting the job just because you like the perks.
Re:How are these two things exclusionary? (Score:2, Informative)
When hiring we do look for the technical skills, but more important than that is the candidate's work experience:
-What type of development have they done?
-What kind of systems have they developed?
-Can they communicate well enough to speak with business users?
-Do they have any experience working in our industry (financial)?
-Do they have any additional schooling or business certifications (NOT MCSE, MCSD, or similar) that would be of use?
In the latest round of hiring, it has taken anywhere from 15-30 interviews before we find someone to fill a position. That's not including the resumes that we reject outright and those that our recruiters filter out before we even see them.
It's true that employers are picky, but I believe they have also realied that IT Development is a unique environment in that one highly skilled developer can sometimes be more effective than 5 or more average developers. The fact is that we have significantly raised our standards for the people we are willing to hire.
Re:Heck, join the military (Score:3, Informative)
The Army Guarantee, guarantees IN WRITING the job of your choice; depending upon availability at the MEPS center at time of arival.
That isn't an exact quote (it was the '80s after all), but it is pretty darn close.
In other words the Army guarantees to give you whatever job they damned well choose.
I'm not opposed to the military at all, and had Sept. 11 just occurred, I would have definitely signed up. But at the time I decided that I wasn't willing to hang my future on that semicolon...
The Situation in the Northeast US (Score:3, Informative)
Look away from the center(s).... (Score:2, Informative)
from Seattle (Score:1, Informative)
The market is still VERY SOFT (Score:2, Informative)
Lucky for me I used the money from the 7 months I have been on this contract to become debt free so it opens up my options such as going back to school and pursuing a masters. Heck I might stay in school for as long as it takes for the market to improve.
I have a ton of great experience but there are a lot of people looking for jobs so job searching is very competitive. I suggest if you have a job try hanging on to it. If you want to go the military route then go Air Force that way you won't see combat. I might look at this as an option but am too old for enlistment.
Please feel free to take a look at my resume at http://www.nickpowers.info (html, MS Word, and text versions available there) and pass it along to anyone you think might be interested. I am willing to relocate anywhere for the right position.
Nick Powers
Re:Submitter new here (to America)? (Score:3, Informative)
But to answer your question, IT workers aren't exempt for any of the reasons you might think. They are exempt because they are usually salaried and make far more than the minimum amount required for salaried workers to be exempt. I, uh, did some research and contacted the state department of labor. I had thought the exemption was $250/week, but now I'm seeing sources that put it elsewhere. Anyways, it is low for salaried workers. Read here [cnn.com] for more details.
For non-salaried IT staff, there's some clause that got added to the Fair Labor Standard Act many years ago that put us into a professional category that allows us to be exempt. IMO - for what I do it's a justified classification when compared to the other job types in the group. The exact wording might be a little to broad/vague, including things like tech support, it's been a while since I read it.
Drive a trash truck. (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, you can laugh all you want. But being a union worker, I get paid more money than I did working on a computer, and the benefits are all there. Yeah, it smells kind of bad and shit, but who cares. It's easy money. Then, I go home and work out my complex investing problems using Mathematica and I make more money by investing in all kinds of instruments. It works pretty well.
Only in Fantasy Land (Score:3, Informative)
I've been mostly out of work for almost 3 years now (I have "work", but I'm what most people would call "underemployed") since I got laid off from my last job (which filed chapter 7 shortly after it laid me and all my co-workers off, then failed to give us our severance pay or other promised bonuses for staying on during the non-liquidation bankruptcy (chapter 13 isn't it?)).
I was, at the time, living in the Seattle/Bellevue/Redmond area of Washington state and I still don't see any kind of response to job applications. Back in 2000 when I was looking for a new job it was vastly different-- I'd put my resume on some job sites (e.g. - Monster.com, etc) and I'd get 2-3 calls a day. I don't get any cold calls now in response to my resume, and what few responses I do get to job apps don't usually even lead to an interview (because they hired someone before me, usually).
More H1-B visas? Maybe when there's no Americans to fill the jobs. And no, a shortage of C# programmers (when you have a flood of C/C++ programmers that could be retrained fairly easily) does not count to me. That they want someone who knows 8 specific technologies (and lists them as "required") tells me they're trying to flood the statistics to make it look like there's a shortage of workers here in the U.S.
Oddly enough, I imagine the politicians will cave and up the number of H1-B's. Though I suppose the alternative is worse-- if they don't up the number of H1-B's then the companies will just outsource the jobs entirely.. lose-lose all around.