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HappySqurriel on 19 July 2012
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richardhutnik said:
HappySqurriel said:
Mr Khan said:
Viper1 said:
Importing skilled workers in the early part of the 20th century is how America became such a dominant labor force to begin with.

Why not try to emulate that again while simultaneously reducing the number of illegal entries into the US?

Better question...if this is not a good bill, what makes it bad?

I think Richard's poking at the idea that making it easier for skilled foreigners to come in would take jobs from skilled Americans, but given that the visa sponsorship process is always more laborious than just hiring someone domestically, this wouldn't be an issue if we had enough skilled Americans.

Of course, i'm inclined to be bitter on the issue just because i don't have a real career job, but the sectors i'm looking into wouldn't be effected by this, so I see the wisdom in it as others in the thread have described it: e.g. it's about keeping growth in these sectors located in America.

Maybe it is different in the United States, but most countries have specific skilled labour visas and you have to have education & experience in fields where there is a demonstrated shortage of domestic workers to qualify. Under these rules it is unlikely that any of these people would take a job away from a local worker.

The whole "Demonstrated shortage" in the IT field is that the industry has run VERY picky standards for what they look for, and don't want to train anyone, and will get rid of workers and replace them with a said perfect mix.  If you know C++, and proficient in Object Oriented Design and coding, it doesn't matter if they want Java.  You need X years of Java.  Recruiters will also say, if you were out of work in the IT field for over 6 months, they can't place you, because your skills are too old.  With this as a reality, it sounds like the IT industry has more than enough workers, right?  How can an industry being incredibily picky, suddenly claim it has a labor shortage.

I haven't seen either personally, and I've been working for over 10 years ... Most companies I have worked in treat Java, C++, and C# as being similar enough and are willing to interview anyone who has enough experience with a well known programming language. I've known many developers who took 6 to 18 months off mid-career to travel and when they got back into the country they tended to have jobs within weeks.

The core problem with the IT field in general is an unwillingness to hire junior people, but after a person has a couple years experience they can typically find jobs anywhere. This is part of the reason for the skilled labour shortage, but a lot of the reason they avoid junior people is because they don't graduate with the skills they need.