I have worked for consulting companies to support IBM mainframes for awhile. I was laid off back in 2012 after 43 years because the long term support people were making too much money. It would be interesting to see how fast a batch problem gets fixed at 2am, by support personnel with no specific company experience. They decided to try outsourcing with an Indian firm, 6 months later, outsourcers were fired. The grass is almost never greener on the other side.
Most companies are strictly bottom-liners, IMO, and will always go with the cheapest option. Never-mind, the careers ruined and the stress of finding a new job in a market loaded with laid off sysprogs. This is why there are so many consulting firms now. Many many ex-IBMers work in consulting thru their 70's. I have met many and work with some. H1B is totally B.S. They need to come up with a better reason to allow so many hardly trained foreign workers to take US jobs. No one seems to be accountable to prove they needed off shore workers due to lack of talent in USA. B.S. Just venting a bit. John Clifford Consultant On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 11:16 PM, Ed Gould <[email protected]> wrote: > Timothy: > You make a broad brush stroke in blue. > There are *DOCUMENTED* instances where IT is coached into putting an ad > into the paper asking for the world in qualifications and then put in a low > salary in the same ad. > This is used to show the "need" for more IT workers at a reduced rate. > Justifying the need to go overseas for people. > There is an industry of people just for doing this. > In reality as both you and I know this is just a way to get cheaper labor. > > About 20 years ago a company I worked for hired one of these workers. What > they got was a semi trained individual that could barely do JCL. > He had a contract for 6 months and was promptly lost when his contract was > up. > > I am not sure this example proves anything except he lied on his resume. > > Ed > On Jul 3, 2015, at 2:52 AM, Timothy Sipples wrote: > > One should not overinterpret the available wage evidence. Businesses do >> have reasonable needs to bring in foreign workers and managers at least >> for >> some period of time. Export-oriented businesses, for example, really do >> need to have staff circulation to/from overseas in order to boost their >> exports. It's also fairly easy to imagine skills requirements that only a >> foreign worker could address in reasonable fashion within a reasonable >> period of time. I imagine there's not a super abundance of experts in >> German contract law (and German language contracts) living in Peoria, >> Illinois, for example, but that sort of skill might be super important to >> a >> particular employer. >> >> Some countries -- Japan comes to mind -- have a ratio (or at least a ratio >> sanity check) policy, meaning that employers are permitted to bring in X >> number of foreign workers as long as they maintain or better yet increase >> the number of local workers by some multiple of X. Perhaps that ratio >> varies by profession or industry to some extent. That sort of approach >> would appear to address at least the bulk of employers' needs. >> >> To summarize, foreign workers can and should be welcomed...within a >> reasonable immigration policy. "Reasonable" means based on the economics >> and reality. Just to pick an example, I'd really like to see even more top >> university graduates in the U.S. be able to pursue careers in the U.S. if >> they wish and under reasonable terms. That sort of approach would be >> pro-skills, pro-talent. As another example, as I understand it the current >> H-1B visa program is tied to a specific sponsoring employer. In my view >> foreign workers shouldn't be captive to a specific employer. They should >> be >> able to "jump ship" for better working conditions and compensation, at >> least after, say, 120 days. Otherwise (in my view) some of their employers >> would be tempted to exploit them in various ways including compensating >> them below market rate for their skills. >> >> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> Timothy Sipples >> IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM z Systems, AP/GCG/MEA >> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> E-Mail: [email protected] >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
