for those of you who think hi-tech people are in a different position than other workers. Eva from EduPage, 31 March: HIGH-TECH CHEAP LABOR SHORTAGE The computer industry has been lobbying Congress to allow more foreign computer science specialists into the country to fill what they say is a significant gap between the number of high-tech jobs and the number of skilled workers available. But University of California professor Norman Matloff says the real shortage is not in skilled workers, but in cheap skilled workers: "The simple answer is they want to save money. They save money by hiring from two main groups of people. Number one, the new college graduates... Compared to the midcareer people, they make less in terms of salary. And they cost less in terms of benefits, because they're usually single and have no dependents. The second group of cheap labor is the H1-B (temporary visas for skilled personnel) work visa people. They, on average, make less than comparable domestic workers. That doesn't mean that all employers who hire H1-Bs are exploiting them. But there are an awful lot that do." Matloff says the industry focus on inexpensive employees has meant a lot of software engineers in their 30s and 40s looking for new jobs, or getting out of the business altogether. (Investor's Business Daily 30 Mar 98) ----- End of forwarded message from Jack Kolb -----
