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MIT Graduate Thrown Away for a $10/Hour Russian

I am a mid-career professional with two master of science degrees including one from MIT. I have and almost 20 years of work experience. 

In my most recent position I was computer programming for a small consulting firm. The firm needed some part-time help so I encouraged the most intelligent person I met at the local college to apply. She was from Russia here on a student visa. My greedy employer happily hired her for $10/hr to do Access development work. They advertised for my own position in local newspapers while I was working there to show that they could not find people and then sponsored the Russian for a green card.  

As soon as I had trained the new women I was fired for printing about $40 worth of paper material containing a typo. The Russian is still there working for $10 and waiting for her permanent visa. I am out of work with no prospects. 

Sorry, But I can not sign this without fear of reprisal from my former employer.

Hi, here in Singapore also!!

I think it is NOT just the HIB visa that is killing local employment. It (jobs discrimination against locals) is everywhere.

First of all about me. I am 34, have a 4 yr professional engineering degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and am working in IT since 1995. I started my IT life from repairing PCs (yes I did soldering), then moved to networking in Netware 3.x, then Windows NT/2000, Novell Netware 5.x, 6.0. and Linux/ FreeBSD. I do perl scripting in my spare time as a hobby.I do firewall administration, router configuration, intrusion detection, server migration etc etc. With years of experience, and hands on, you can categorise me as a veteran expert.

For the past 2 years, I am trying to get a new job as I am unhappy with my present job and pay. Expect the result! For the 1000 or so applications I sent out, I did NOT get a single offer for an interview even. Shocked! Later my friends told me that, I need certifications. So I completed my MSCE2000, CNE5, CCNA, MCDBA. (side note: all were easy to me, as I know the stuff. Remmeber I am working for 8 years in IT, and I study one to two hour per day after work. (I like to learn!) I can get more [A-Z][A-Z]...[A-Z] if the new company wants it, in a short notice.

Mm, even now the situation is same. Now if i get a rare reply to my job applications, it is like "you are over-qualified for this job' although I am ready to take that job for THAY pay they give an Indian!.

But, companies are hiring Indians and Indians only. They are young (most in their mid 20s), and are being hired by MNC for good posts like senior consultant etc. If you speak nice to them you will learn that his/her degree is in biology or any and then he did some 6 months course at some 'institute'. I would like to say that in India, you can get an engineering degree at some 'college' no matter your performance in high school provided that you have money. (Exceptions shall be a few like IIT). There is no strict (or even slack) admission criteria for institutions providing degrees in India.

How do they get jobs?

(1) There is a prejudice against non Indians. PHBs think that you have to be an Indian to work in IT.

(2) There are some illegal kickbacks in hiring. Once one Indian friend promised to find me job, provided that I pay the first 4 months salary to the agency. He says, a 'part' will goto the hiring manager of the company.

(3) Once an Indian becomes to a hiring position, he will not hire anyone BUT indians. (This is patriotism as per Indians)

(4) Indians never say 'I do not know'. You ask whether he can do 'ANY JOB', he will boast 'he has been doing it for years' although he may not know what he is talking about. Remeber, even I, after years of experience and learning, say that " I did not do it previously, but I can refer to this and do it. " . Idiot Managers do NOT like answers like this.

TELL ME WHERE SHALL I BANG MY HEAD. For the time being I use my table. Bang, bang!

Sam Prasad.

(I am not Indian, but of Indian root !!!!)

Laid off from IBM

I was working as a contract employee for IBM in Austin, TX as a Java developer in the Developer Relation's group. In March 2003, my manager asked me how well I knew the product I was working on. I told her pretty well. She said, "Good, because I'm going to need you to train two Indians on it because we are shipping it's support overseas." I was flabberghasted to say the least. A few weeks later, we got an email from our contracting firm telling us that IBM was cutting contractor rates another 5%. This was the 3rd 5% cut in 19 months. When I complained about the rate cut to my IBM manager, she had my contract terminated. I have been unemployed since April 2003 and have sent out hundreds of resumes and haven't even gotten a nibble.

I decided to leave hi tech altogether when I encountered other unemployed hi tech workers at a local Reemployment Center who had advanced degrees and had been out of work for 2 years. I start back to our local community college to pursue a Sonography (ultrasound) degree. I have been trying to get my tuition and books paid for by a federally-funded program called WIA (Workforce Investment Act). I applied to the program in June 2003, the person I was working with at the Worksource Career Center, took so long to get anything done that it was the middle of August before I finally got submitted for approval. I was finally sent an email the week before Fall classes started telling me that the funds had been frozen. After spending the day making phone calls, I finally found out that they had run out of WIA funding for the fiscal year and would not get refunded until October. However, it will be the Spring semester before it will do me any good, that is provided I get approved.

After further research, I learned that our great leader, G.W. Bush, had funding cut for WIA:

AT&T Wireless Orders Layoffs & Ferraris

I am another Victim of Tata Consulting Services of India that is raping the

United States of our jobs. I am a developer for AT&T Wireless in Bothell Washington. I am also a lifetime member of the Disabled American Veterans Association, former AD Army military Police Officer, and a former employee of the US Immigration service. I left INS to take the opportunity offered to me in the world of IT with AT&T Wireless. I started with AT&T Wireless on September 11, 2000, and am currently the last American left from a team of over 30 a year ago.

AT&T Employees are being threatened with firing and no severance if they don't cooperate in training the TCS folks on how to take over their jobs. Today in a meeting we reamining developers were asked to tell TCS how long it would take TCS tolearn our applciations. Apparently TCS does not know how to evaluate the expertise of their own employees.

There has been no news coverage of AT&T Wireless' massive offshoring efforts. I have emailed senator patty murray of Washington state, and was replied with that she is fighting to get more unemployment benefits. I have asked why not solve the cuase of the unemployment in the first place? I have never received an answer. I have emailed every government and congressional email I can find.

The people at my company, to include our new CIO Chris Corrado, have no regard whatsoever of the effects of their actions on the employees as we are on our way out. Chris Corrado, who recently took over the CIO position of our company and is doing what he did at his last company : offshoring everything and getting rid of all the American workers, had a $200,000 Ferrari delivered to him at work at the AT&T Wireless corporate offices in Redmond Washington last week. That is the attitude and atmosphere we employees are having to deal with on top of being FORCED to train our replacements.

I spoke with my director this morning, a pakistani native, and he even admitted that the budget figures are not showing the sharp cost savings promised by TCS. That apparently hasn't deterred uppper management from chasing their dream of off shoring everything.

Please tell me we can do something to stop all of this. I am so outraged, and

emotionally devistated at the same time. It just doesn't seem like anyone cares in this country, least of all those who are supposed to be protecting : our government.

I've served in the US Army, lost friends and family who have dedicated their lives in protection of our nation. AT&T Wireless is sending over applicationas that give India FULL access to ALL systems within the company. This includes: database systems that house all PERSONAL CUSTOMER information (credit cards, phone records, voicemail archive systems - think that voicemail is toast when you delete it? think again!), and all of the EMPLOYEE data as well, which includes social security numbers. AT&T Wireless also is a major provider of services for the US government. Guess who has access to all that data now as well?

Thank you for your time.

Soon-To-Be-Outsourced Developer (As soon as I train my replacements)

AT&T Wireless

Indians are taking over the medical field

I am an american born and raised in this country. I always wanted to be a doctor but did not have the opportunity to study in the states so I decided to pursue my medical career in Europe. There were also many other Americans who did the exact same thing. After finishing medical school, I came back to the states two years ago to find a job as a physician. I was amazed how many Indians there are here on visas getting jobs. There must be thousands of them. I have not found a job in two years because many hospitals and those unpatriotic directors would rather give the job to the Indians. When asked why I was not given the job the answer was "the Indians score better on their medical exams". My reply was of course they do because their medical schools are geared to pass the medical exams and they practice those exams for years. Indian medical schools are nothing more than 5 year prep courses to flood their students into the states. I have heard that they cheat and will do anything to get high scores on those exams. But my point is I am just as qualified as they are, I know the American culture, and most importantly I speak English. My only hope is that there will be a stoppage to HB1 visas so I can find a job. The medical directors in many hospitals should be ashamed of themselves in passing over citizens.

Accountant Displaced by Indians

I recently was employed with the intention on my and my employers behalf of becoming a permanent accountant. The reality was that I was used to create accounting documents, schedules, reports, etc. which the Indian boss could not. 

Due to his lack of english communication skills, I created all descriptive writings and analyses. He was unable to even construct a simple sentence. I believe his communication skills level to be that of an american elementary school child. 

All oral conversations (there was no writing, e-mail, memos) had to be repeated and clarified. When I mentioned this problem to his supervisor, I was told that "we are easy going". 

I wondered how he could be a department head and fiscal officer without such skills and an accounting degree? 
He relied too heavily on memorization, the help of others outside and within the office, and rudely spoke hindi on the phone and to other Indians in the office. 

How could he have passed the written test given by this employer? Also, he showed me a photograph of his three brothers now in U.S. I never have seen four brothers who look so unlike each other. 

What is happening to job opportunties for americans? 

Displacement in America's graduate schools

As a graduate student in an engineering department that self-reports an international student population of 84%, I can attest that in four of my courses I was the only American citizen attending, and in one case the only non-Indian. The other students were primarily (90-95%) of Indian origin. 

I would be more inclined to be supportive of these students if it weren't for the extremely high levels of plagiarism, cheating, and recycling of previous students' projects that I and others have observed among international students. In one class where most class projects were posted to the Web, ALL the posted papers used other people's work without attribution. The plagiarized material - usually directly lifted and not even reworded - accounted for 50% or more of each paper. This is not a stray sentence here or there - this is full-scale theft that implicated over half the students in the class - none of whom were EVER disciplined. There is a very real threat here that large numbers of international graduate students are cutting and pasting their way to academic and vocational success, with the tacit consent of their professors, departments, and university administrations.

Cheating is a routine event. One instructor railed at a 70-person class (again, primarily composed of international students, mostly from India) for an hour because of his students' illegal use of previous years' exams on a midterm. Nothing was done about this, and the grades were allowed to stand.

What is happening here is that normal codes of conduct are suspended for these students - owing to political sensitivities, concerns about the severe consequences of disciplinary action for these students, or just out-and- out sympathy from professors who were formerly international students themselves. This is supported by corporate interests who believe they are acting responsibly to promote international development - while saving themselves a bundle of money in the process. It may also be supported by finance-minded administrators who are mindful of the extra tuition revenue brought in by international students.

These factors promote an insidious myth that Americans (or Canadians - fill in the blank) are deficient in industriousness and lack the basic skills necessary to pursue education in this (and other) areas. This myth further restricts both educational and work opportunities for American citizens. In some cases it is even embraced by academics who have seen overwhelming evidence of what has been called "culturally divergent attitudes toward intellectual honesty." 

The practiced racism and "status prejudices" among some groups of international students is also amazing. In some cases, an attitude that "anything is justified as long as I get what I want" prevails. This exists alongside feelings of resentment stemming from a perception that students of American origin didn't have to do anything to achieve citizen status. A prevalent fiction indicates that diversity provides greater educational value realized in teamwork - a reasonable enough hypothesis, but in reality there are very few Indian-Chinese-Mexican joint cooperative efforts. In practice members of given ethnic groups or related ethnic groups tend to stick together. Only in a TRULY diverse environment would this tendency be eradicated (and indeed, my only successes in the ubiquitous group projects have been in multi-ethnic groups where no single ethnic group was allowed to dominate and exert undue pressures).

The sad fact of the matter is that American citizens - of whatever race or color - are, as a direct result of these practices, an endangered species in graduate schools of engineering. One exception is Virginia Tech, which I believe recently (2001) instituted a policy that international students would constitute no more than half of entering graduate students. Unfortunately, upon graduation, in any area other than national defense (and sometimes not even in this area), citizens become the "hires of last resort." 

The necessary step to start amending the resulting problems is to institute consistent and thorough reviews of students' submitted work, and start enforcing the rules that for some of us have ALWAYS been on the books. Please start demanding that professors, departments, and universities undertake thorough reviews of written work by students, and actually act on what they find. Search tools and services exist that can compare text reasonably quickly and often with a great degree of accuracy. Some of these are even free. I was told by the university ombudsman that the engineering college could not use such tools because of the expense, effort and time involved. What's more expensive, subsidizing incompetence and intellectual dishonesty, or carrying through the due diligence necessary to ensure qualification?

Another step is to promote returning international students to their countries of origin. Often international students are sent at government expense to acquire expertise critical to their region of origin. In the case of India, a shortfall in IT managers and expertise is expected to continue over the next decade, even as Indian students and professionals seek work in North America, Europe, and Australia. Start arguing for instant repatriation following graduation.

H-1Bs, J-1s, and Students 

Good work in illustrating the tremendous threat to our way of life that this trend entails. Not only has IT been raped by this, but accounting and finance are beginning to feel it as well. Audit, tax and payroll jobs are being offshored to India, and many finance jobs are on their way, even the sought after I-Banking analyst jobs. In fact, there is little limit to what can be sent over or imported, and this is what should scare us all. IT is just the first to lead the charge. They have a billion people, so they can take more than we can give them. Watch in the next couple of years as our nurses and pharmacists get glutted out and put out onto the street. Whenever there is real opportunity in a profession from now on, one that requires corporations to actually recruit and pay individuals a good wage, there will be a flood of immigrants to offset it.

It is not just the mid-career professional that is feeling the squeeze here. It is equally and perhaps more frustrating for people my age to deal with this mess. I am a new MIS graduate from a top-5 MIS school. I graduated #3 in my class, and had zero offers. In fact, I only had two interviews, and both of those jobs went to J-1 visa holders (soon to be converted to H-1B). Each was well below me in class rank and one had been suspended for academic misconduct. Both speak poor English and could not possibly have beaten me out in interviews. Only about 25% of our class got job offers this year, down from 100% in every year prior to 2002.

In 1999, companies were recruiting here like mad. There were 3-4 offers for each person, signing bonuses were the rule, and companies began wining and dining our students as early as sophomore year. The same could be said for our Computer Science department. It took a 3.8+ to have any legitimate chance of transferring into MIS here, and the program was so sought after that they turned away hundreds of applicants per year, for only 55 spots. Now, they can barely fill the classes. This all happened in LESS THAN FOUR YEARS! Most of us are now unemployed and many, including myself, have left IT altogether because we see the writing on the wall.

We new graduates face an even more daunting task than older people. With no companies willing to train new graduates, we cannot even break into the lowest levels of IT. Most entry level jobs are the types that have been offshored to India, and this gives us little chance to build experience. Even though our salaries are frequently on the level of H-1B workers, we cannot even hope to get interviews for jobs without any work experience. Most of the remaining entry level jobs go to mid-career professionals with years of experience.

This is a national crisis. The government and corporations blame a faulty education system and a lack of people being produced by it. Well, when the top people at the top technical schools in America cannot even sniff an interview, what does that tell you? Schools ARE turning out quality workers, but companies don’t want them. I would be glad to work for $40K per year and some decent benefits. I don’t need $100K per year. It beats what I make now by a long shot. Our workforce is not going to “catch up” if we tell our brightest new graduates to forget it when they are ready to enter the labor force. I fail to see how H-1B is a temporary solution if we won’t even let any new people enter the job market. Furthermore, very few young people are planning careers in IT now because they see this happening. I have seen countless people leave majors such as EE, CSci, MIS, ME, and such because they know there is no market for them. If they just want a degree that won’t find them a job, they can major in philosophy. Heck, it would be a lot easier. We are causing our own demise and the erosion of our high-tech workforce with NIV workers.

Ben McNeil
University of Minnesota, Class of 2003
MIS Refugee

BellSouth, H1B galore

I’ve worked as a contractor in software development for 8 years. I watched up until a year ago (when I left contracting for a perm gig) as some very talented fellow citizens were replaced by H1Bs (all from India). The environment was so hostile to all contractors working there, that most of the citizens were eventually fired or left in disgust. The Indians were basically indentured servants forced to work long hours. I was in a position to interview and hire new contractors when a BellSouth manager decided I did not need to review resumes or do interviews, that they would just hire the person (H1B) and if they did not work out after 2 or 3 weeks, just fire them. This hiring process gave us people who could barely speak English, and had little or no desired skills. Working there became a joke. People would be at their desk one minute and would disappear the next. I literally had a co-worker disappear while I took a short restroom break (he was fired and escorted out for some unknown reason). The Indians were afraid to go on extended vacations (4-5 weeks) to their home in India because their contracts would be terminated while they were gone. When I left, the ratio of H1Bs to U.S. citizens was probably 20:1 with many of the citizens sitting at home unemployed. It was obvious this company had a cheap, unlimited labor force that they could abuse to their hearts content.

I own 1/3 interest in an IT consulting company that was incorporated and began business in Dallas, Texas in 1988 with only two employees (I'm employee #2, #1 left the company in 1994 when we had 25 employees). Back then our bread-and-butter was AS/400 contract programming. By 1999 we had over 100 full-time employees (having many technical skillsets, not just AS/400 programming) with offices in Austin, Irving (Dallas), Denver, and Houston.

Today we have fewer than 15 employees, with no commercial office space. Don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming my company's problems on outsourcing and American companies sending their work offshore. Our business started declining when the Y2K work began slowing down, it took another hit when the internet bubble burst, and again because of the the long-term effects of September 11, 2001.

However, I believe that non-immigrant workers (H-1B's and particularly L-1's) have caused many opportunities to be lost by my company. Many factors have contributed to our declining business, resulting in the layoff of approximately 85 workers over the last 3 years. Some of the workers that we laid off 18 months ago have not found IT jobs yet! Had it not been for the non-immigrant workers, I believe that we would have significantly more employees than we do today.

It is my belief that workers entering this country under the L-1 visa program are today causing employment problems for American workers that are worse than those caused by H-1B workers. There is currently a limit on the number of H-1B visas issued each year. There is _no_ annual limit on the number of L-1 visas that can be issued in the U.S. In fact, with a SINGLE L-1 application form a company can bring in hundreds ofworkers!

I am currently working as a consultant for a Fortune 500 company. They have already sent the programming work for a very large company-wide order entry and fullfillment system to be done offshore in India. There are also hundreds of IT consultants working _onshore_ for this company, but as far as I can tell only a fraction of them are American citizens like me. Most of them are Indians. Right now I could be training my Indian replacement.

At the site where I work there are currently between 50 and 80 non-immigrant (almost all L-1) workers from Indian IT consulting firms that are performing programming and technical jobs. I believe _these_ jobs should be performed by American workers.

I should also mention that these on-site L-1 workers are probably being billed out at roughly $ 60.00 per hour (which reflects a billing rate of $25.00 per hour plus their living expenses of around $35.00 per hour). At this rate, I'm not so sure where the cost-savings is occurring or where the company gets its justification for utilizing these workers. I know of many out-of-work IT people in Austin who have the skills to do much of this work at salaries or rates that nowadays would be competitive with the Indian firms.

I'm not sure how many jobs have been filled company-wide by these non-immigrant workers, but I _do_ know that there is a corporate mandate to outsource most programming work, either offshore or by bringing in L-1's
to fill the onshore positions.

I went to a town meeting on Saturday, May 10 in Seagoville, Texas (Southeast Dallas County). This meeting was hosted by Jeb Hensarling, the freshman congressman from the 5th Congressional District. He spoke briefly about the federal budget and various other issues.

When the town meeting was opened for public comments, I expressed great concern that while it is certainly the right of any company to outsource programming (or other types of work) _offshore_, many _onshore_ jobs in the U.S. are being filled by Indian consulting firms and their business partners using L-1 workers (most of which are paid a fraction of the wage paid to US workers!), thus displacing American workers _here_ in the United States. Congressman Hensarling said that he "would look into this issue". What a joke!

During the town meeting, I also expressed the opinion that while this practice (using L-1 workers to displace American workers) may not be a violation of the _letter_ of the law, it probably violates the _intent_ of the law in regard to the use of the L-1 visa.

As I understand it, the L-1 visa was designed to allow multinational companies to transfer their employees into the United States to work on company projects. I don't believe that the L-1 was designed to allow Infosys, Wipro, Tata, SLK, and others the ability to bring their employees into the United States to work for their client companies for the purpose of taking away onshore jobs from American workers.

Steve Landess

Displaced American Worker

Any of those people who think that the H1B Visa Program is legitimate needs Freudian Analysis.

 I have been working in the Software Development field for over 15 years and have seen everything. Recently myself and several colleagues were laid off by the New York based Bank JPM Chase and replaced by several H1B Visa holders from India. This was done not for lack of skill in the current development team, but due to the need to remove higher paid Americans from the bank. This was reinforced by an internal memo (that we were not to see) of a manager bragging that he was able to not only remove some of his staff, but his entire staff and therefore deserved a bigger bonus! This was done even though our division in the bank made record profits in the last quarter. This sure defeats the theory that everyone shares in the rewards. 

The trickle of jobs going to overseas workers is becoming a flood while Corporate Executives reap the benefits. The Robber Barons are back, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt would be proud. Hopefully enough of these guys will pay their taxes so I can get my $800 a month in benefits. So next time you see a man holding a sign on a corner saying "Will work for food" he is probably a displaced Developer. Be prepared to see dire changes in the economy, first it was manufacturing that was outsourced, now it will be the service industry and all of us will pay for it 10 years from now. With all professions starting to be hit by foreign workers hopefully that H1B technician who looks at your X. Rays knows the difference between cancer and indigestion.

Training - Don't Waste Your Time On Oracle

(Part of the $1,000 visa fee for H-1B is used to train American high-tech workers with the "skills to compete" in the modern workplace. The training courses include Oracle Databases - which is just one of the many skills that won't help American's get jobs from the H-1Bs who are willing to work for less on indentured contracts.)

I am an expert in Oracle database design and engineering. I even helped write a book. I wrote a chapter on Oracle performance tuning in an Oracle data warehousing book - Gary Dodge and Tim Gorman.

Oracle database design and engineering is one of the courses they teach to get Americans back to work, but I am an expert at that.

I have all of the latest and greatest skills... Oracle (even the latest 9i), C, Pro*C, C++, Unix, JAVA, HTML, and more. I am an expert in Oracle database design and engineering. I even helped write a book about Oracle. I wrote a chapter on Oracle performance tuning in an Oracle8i data warehousing book by Gary Dodge and Tim Gorman (check the acknowledgments for my name).

I've received only a single reply to the two hundred and fifty or so resumes I sent out over the last six weeks. I was making $97 an hour as an independent (incorporated) consultant doing Oracle 9i data warehousing, and my contract ended in the last week of April. 

I am applying for everything out there, even jobs advertised at $28 an hour! It was the $28 an hour job that contacted me. They said I was too qualified, and even though I am out of work with little prospect of finding anything else, and I told them that I need the money, and would promise to stay for as long as they needed me, they don't want me because they say I would just leave them if something else came along.

They don't want me. They won't let me work at any rate or salary! Oracle database design and engineering is one of the courses they teach in that H-1B retraining program to get Americans back to work, but I am already an expert at that. I can't find a job at any rate or salary with that skill, or any of the other current skills I have in the latest and greatest in technology.

I can't find a job at any rate or salary with that skill, or any of the other current skills I have in the latest and greatest technology.

-Richard Armstron
HireAmericanCitizens

Another candidate for Hall of Shame

ABCV communications, Des Moines takes pride in hiring people on H1B Visas. Even the wives of Software engineers who had not seen computers before coming to US are employed by this company.

Kaiser Permanente globalizes (H-1B abuses)

In 1998 Kaiser Permanente managers went on a recruiting trip to India to hire H-1Bs. A total of 50 Indian programmers were brought in to work at their Pasadena, CA facility. A further 15 - 20 programmers were recruited from Egypt. (Some of the IT top brass at KP are from Egypt)

The H-1B programmers were supposedly hired for their Cool:gen/IEF skills but I am told that some of them fabricated their CVs; they did not have all the skills required to do the job. Nevertheless, they continue to be employed at KP to this very day.

There has also been instances of KP H-1Bs bringing their spouses to work at KP - either as permanent employees or as contractors. In both instances, the women that were hired had questionable credentials.

There have also been rumors of kickbacks to an Indian team lead who only hires people of Tamil (S. Indian) background and only from a particular agency.

BTW many of the KP H-1Bs' are now getting their Green Cards.

Please add Merrill Lynch to the h1-b hall of shame

Please add Merrill Lynch to the hall of shame. This company is notorious for hiring H1-B workers from India and eventually sending all IT work to India, just to save on expenses. Ironically, this happened right after 9/11. Just as Merrill was recovering from the attacks on the WTC, Merrill started a new program called ADC (Alternative Development Centers) program. This is a euphemism for shipping work to India or hiring more consultants from India, on the H1-B visa program, as well.

Ironic and hypocritical! After 9/11, ML was putting We are Bullish on America posters on the wall right next to posters for users and managers to attend in-house ADC seminars! Nevertheless, Merrill has contracts with Tata Consulting Services and Wipro to bring over Indian worker on the H1-B. They are also going to be sending the work to TATA and WIPRO in India. 

Meanwhile, on Friday, 5/2/3, I was laid off. It was kind of insidious. My manager has not given my any real work in two months. Meanwhile, the H1-B consultant sitting right next to me was doing the work that I should have been doing (design and development of an enhancement to a database system). The only reason: he made less than me, didn’t require any benefits (because his consulting firm provide him with benefits anyway, and they are crappy compared with ML) and he worked all hours of the day or night and never complained or else him and his family would be shipped back to India.

I currently live in Central New Jersey, home to AT&T Labs, Lucent Technologies and many telecoms. Many of their workers live in Central New Jersey, as well. When the telecoms went bust, almost of all of those works in Central NJ lost their jobs. This would have been a wonderful opportunity for ML to hire these technical professionals. That would definitely show how bullish Merrill was to America! Most of them would give anything to work at ML, even as a consultant, doing crappy Oracle, SQL financial data processing stuff. 

I one time brought this up to a former manager of mine (who by the way, was on the ADC steering committee and ironically also got laid off last Friday, as well). I told her that it seemed hypocritical for ML to be shipping work over seas and hiring foreigner to do work that Americans should be doing, and at the same time attempting to be patriotic (as I stated, the We are Bullish on America posters). She said it was a little bit wrong, but I would have to see it from the point of view of the stock holders and board members that this is saving the company money. We’ll see how the savings are going to be when a trader or financial analyst is having trouble with their systems and they have to call up India for support. It will even be funnier when the consultant they speak to can’t speak English and the turn around time is protracted!

Its really a horror

I am myself on F-1 visa over here. After completing my MS in comp. sci. I am trying to get a JOB (H1B) but the companies who are offering me job wants to pay me only $25K for being a network administrator. It sucks. I have done my Bachelors and Masters in computer science and I also have MCSE. I think i wasted my life in studying all these.

I now hate H1B because the people from my own country who do not know a shit get job and i don't as i am demanding more money. I deserve that much money.. And about my american friends i am really very sorry for them because i have seen many of my american friends though intelligent are without work and the most hopeless thing for a post of Engineer they hire some H1B candidate who has just done some certifications and is not really an engineer. 

ACTUALLY MISUSE OF H1B SUCKS AND IT SHOULD BE BANNED.

Sorry for the trouble my american friends from my countrymen. I am going back to my own country and hope you guys get the jobs you deserve.

My Horror

One of the biggest contributors towards unemployment is Immigration. Companies take advantage of the H1B and L1 visa options.

I work for a large foreign telecommunications company. I was forced to come back to the US under and indentured servitude contract. I am an American but under slave status to foreigners in my own country!

Last year and last week they laid off hundreds of Americans. They will not lay off foreigners as they would need to pay for their return. Also, it is a little hard as they sponsor green cards for the foreigners after only 6 months in the USA. They refuse to post LCAs or workmens comp notices.

This and other violations of federal law are overlooked and our leaders do not care. I have written all of my congressmen and senators both state and national. They do not care or will not hurt themselves with big business.

I am a disabled American veteran who faces age and anti-American discrimination. The EEOC wanted to file a case but I would be fired and my family cannot eat dirt. Our government could care less.

When the people were fired last year, the company had already applied for H1B visas for their replacements. We were also told that NO Americans would be hired in the foreseeable future. Only foreigners. The hiring continues.

I have been in telecom for over 30 years and am considered an expert but my Indian manager says nothing counts but 1 year ago. 

This is bad enough for all of us in the job marketplace but what about our returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan? They will really get the shaft.

I was driven from the USA after 3 tours in Vietnam as a "Baby Killer" and due to the fact that all of the jobs were taken by people who evaded the war. Now it is not Americans but foreigners who are killing our people.

AND, our government does not care.

I am ashamed to be an American in my own country.

Richard Cook

Seattle Chamber of Commerce promoting the offshoring of local jobs

Thought you might be interested in what our local chamber of commerce in Seattle was doing several weeks ago: hosting a presentation promoting the offshoring of local and regional tech jobs (please see web site/article below from The Seattle Times newspaper).

I contacted various Seattle City Council members - unfortunately, some couldn't be reached as they were in China and Vietnam working on behalf of state corporations to offshore local jobs!!!!!!!

Our tax dollars at work - to further shrink our local tax base but grow unemployment and homelessness.

Thanks for your stupendous work in this matter.

James Woolley, Seattle

Cisco Systems Oracle DBA group

When I was laid off after almost four years working around the clock at Cisco Systems in San Jose, CA, I was not overly surprised. After all, the pattern had been very clear. I was the last American of a large group of more than two dozen Oracle database administrators. Even my Indian colleagues frequently commented on how no Americans were ever interviewed. Well, no wonder - I tried several times to present resumes for open positions but as long as the name was not foreign, my boss never looked beyond the top of the resume. One day, in frustration, he pretty much spilled the beans telling me to 'Take a good look around and match the color scheme!' I got the message. After one candidate complained that my technical questions were too difficult (straight out of the Oracle Certified Professional tests) compared to my Indian colleagues who judged based on a handshake and three minute chat, I no longer was part of the selection process. My boss particularly did not like my questioning whether it was truly possible for men in their early to mid-twenties to have already earned PhDs. And I still don't see what is so wrong with calling companies and universities in India for reference checks but apparently, that is somehow considered to be discriminatory as it may indicate doubt of an applicant's stated qualifications. As these H1-Bs get promoted up the management chain, climbing the ladder to senior level management, maybe the CEOs will wake up.

Stephen Kraus

Sydney, Australia (US citizen)

The real story

I have read several of your newsletters [click link for a free subscription] that have been forwarded by a friend for a number of months and finally felt the need to write a letter concerning my observations on the whole H1B thing. I am a manager in a high tech company (I can't disclose which one, but we are a mid size company of ~2000 people). Previously I worked for a large European engineering company (10k+ people). As a manager, I personally saw these "highly skilled" critical H1Bs come and go. To date, I have seen NONE that possess critical skills. Virtually all have been new college graduates with NO special skills. We would hire them becasue they were cheap and put them to work doing the simple grind work like running the huge number of simulations required to verify a design. NONE were able to do creative design on their own, they were simply operators of engineering tools that have been simplified over the years to allow UNSKILLED people to operate them easily. In most cases, during the boom years, these H1Bs would bounce around since sponsorship was easy to obtain and they were able to get salary increases. This is not the case anymore.

At my present company, we are in the process of shipping as many US jobs to South East Asia. We employ a significant number of H1Bs. We can't apply for Green Cards for them because of recent layoffs, but the company has a plan to make it look like we are "hiring" in the areas the H1Bs are employed so we can "claim" no qualified US citizen can be found. This is not speculation on my part, but the result of a meeting I attended with our immigration lawyers. If I can find the presentation distributed, I will take exerpts and forward them. Again, ALL of our H1Bs are either new college graduates or recent college graduates (less than 2 years experience) hired strictly because they are endentured servants. NONE possess critical skills.

Name and address with held because of retalliation

horror story from academia

Americans need to be much more cognizant of what you have going on in higher education. I am a UK citizen who attended a doctoral program in the USA a couple years ago and returned back to the UK to work. Americans are so hesitant to make any politically-incorrect statements that they are effectively allowing foreigners from India, China, and the former Soviet Union take over higher education. In my field, business administration, there is a well-known slimy, manipulative Indian Mafia which hired cronies and relatives for research jobs and hired "dumb Americans" for less lucrative positions. You have the strongest economy in the world, why are you letting your children be taught business by people with no understanding of American business practice and disdain for American culture?

In engineering and business you can look at the web pages of any graduate program or faculty of a large college and you will see what I am saying. With smiles on their faces they stab you in the back. Americans, beware!

MISUSE of HIB and misrepresentation by Applied Biosystems, Foster City

This is to inform you about the misuse of H1B program by Applied Biosystems, located in Foster City, CA. We were laid off from Applied Biosystems recently and after visiting various sites and talking to lots of other people we realized that this company is misusing the HIB as well as Green Card processing program.

• The company has been recruiting people on H 1 B and lying off Americans.
• There are people in Applied Biosystems (Indians) who have given false certificates to obtain H1B as well as Green Card. I know at least two such people. INS is aware of this problem and many times they have verified and caught many people (in other cases). Applied Biosystems has such people who have misrepresented themselves.
• On H1B if you file Green card, it is tied to a specific position. But Applied Biosystems has promoted people on H1B and denying that chance to American citizens. We know two such cases in IT (Information Tech.) department. We know about IT as we used to work there.

They are still processing green cards while lying off American work force. We are writing to San Jose INS, because most of these Indians were processed for their Green Cards at your center.

I hope you will look into this and will punish people who are breaking rules. All we want is that everyone should play by the rules.

Verizon in Tampa: Another Cuel Joke

Approximately 200 employees and contractors have been replaced with H-1Bs here in Tampa / Temple Terrace since 2000. While I worked there during '98 to '02 during continuing layoffs, we noticed increasing numbers of foreign employees, not contractors, and there were virtually no job postings. Also a project dealing with a core customer info system and others were sent to the India division or shops and the workers layed off. The new CIO was chosen for his offshoring and H-1B recruiting connections. Almost every 'job' posting I've seen for them has been with a foreign recruiter. Occasionally they beg for a token American (or their resumes). Fortunately I'm at a real company and need not apply. Was looking to see if some lawsuits have been filed, and there may be, for apparently ripping off customers: verizonclassaction.com What a pathetic place.

Wave a white flag.....

I'm afraid folks I don't see much positive happening on the IT in USA front. I'm out of work and every IT shop I've gone in the last few years is full of young Indians. We don't seem to be able to get a reduction in H-1B's or in mass immigration as well. Politicians just don't want to do it. It's over. India has won. 

Raymond Golich
Michigan

Boeing Overseas Job Discrimination

Since 9/11 Boeing has been sending jobs overseas and giving them to foreign contract workers with no regard whatsoever for thousands of laid off U.S. workers. This policy is blatant discrimination based on national origin. It is simply unfair, and is unpatriotic. Foreign workers pay no U.S. or Washington state taxes and contribute to our unemployment. 

On Sept. 9, 2001, the Everett (Washington) Herald published a very prophetic article about Heiner Wilkens, "Boeing's Man in Europe." This recently hired senior vice president described his vision of filling his Brussels office with more European nationals rather than "just expatriates" from Seattle. This vision, approved by Boeing's leaders in Seattle and Chicago, openly discriminates against U.S. residents and citizens. 

Here's proof. Since 9/11, Boeing has released hundreds of job ads which say "This Position is Only Open to European Residents." These positions range from field service reps in Germany to a security specialist for the Moscow office. As a native German and European Union citizen, it's no wonder Heiner wants more jobs for his fellow Europeans. I am incensed that a European resident has a greater right and privilege to a job than an equally qualified and laid off U.S. resident. 

This policy is bigger than just Europe. Since 9/11, no overseas contract workers in the world have been laid off from Boeing while 30,000 U.S. Boeing workers, mostly in Washington state, have lost their jobs. Not a single Russian contract worker from the Boeing Moscow office, nor from Heiner's Belgium office, is standing in an unemployment line. All foreign contract employees belong to overseas subsidiaries such as Boeing Overseas International, Boeing Russia, etc. These groups all report to Chicago and have been excluded from the layoff quotas endured by Boeing Commercial Airplane group in Seattle. In effect, all foreign contract workers are protected from layoff. 

My final proof is personal. I am a direct casualty of Heiner's view and vision. My boss in sales, who directly reported to Heiner, said, "Jerry, I'm sorry. Your job was eliminated, and your next promotion was taken by a Hungarian resident of Budapest. Your performance was not a factor." 

My family and I moved and suffered much for Boeing during my 28 years of service, which included three hardship years in Yugoslavia. Having my Boeing future taken away by a foreign contract worker, especially one I unknowingly trained, hurt me and especially my family. My son was also laid off. 

I urge all ZaZona subscribers to contact their federal and state political leaders to bring this discrimination issue into public debate. We need some strong and creative legislation to bring these overseas jobs back into the United States. Laid off workers must be given first priority for all foreign based jobs. You can forget the EEOC or the Washington State Human Rights Commission. They told me overseas jobs are out of their jurisdiction. Perhaps some creative private lawyers can mount a class action against Boeing. It's a known fact that Boeing hates the glare of a public courtroom, especially if it involves discrimination. 

What Boeing is doing is an act of discrimination not only for me, a naturalized citizen born in Germany of Ukrainian parents, but for people of all nationalities residing in the United States. Discrimination based on residency must not be tolerated in this free and democratic country, of which I am proud to be a part. 

Incidentally, the Herald newspaper article described Heiner as tall, handsome, and polished. I'm available for an interview from any newspaper, too.

Jerry Lisewych
Woodinville, WA

Information Technology Jobs!

Well, I thought you'd all like to know that the Information Technology depression (figurative, literal and, emotional) is OVER! We here in Madison, Wisconsin (yes, THAT Madison) have a Big Ten University, several private colleges, a technical college, an experienced local workforce, and a large base of local employers able and willing to hire. In fact, one local employer - Epic Systems Corporation - has landed a major contract for their software (electronic medical record management) with Kaiser Permanente (http://www.channel3000.com/money/1958080/detail.html) and will soon be hiring "Hundreds".

Funny thing, though; I've been working in information technology in the Madison area for nearly twenty years and I can't seem to find any contract or employment work. How can this be? Well, I'm sure my degraded skills wouldn't be of interest to a local company like Epic, but how about recent graduates? Will they have better luck? My first impression is to say "yes". However, as I look in the LCA information on www.zazona.com, I'm less than convinced. With one of the premier universities in the nation on our doorstep and a highly educated local employee base, why do we need to import foreign labor to do technical work? Well, obviously I can't answer that question due to my inferior analytical abilities, but maybe someone else out there can explain it to me. Our governor proclaimed in his "State of the State" address that Wisconsin needs to focus on gaining and retaining high paying technical jobs. I just didn't realize that he was addressing the residents of India, Malaysia, China, Russia, etc.

So, anyway, I want all of you unemployed IT workers to head to Madison - resumes in hand - and stop by the Epic Systems Corporation home office to land the job my governor has promised you. Sorry, you won't find these jobs advertised in the local paper. But believe me, they're there.

Good luck and let me know how your job interview went!

Will Thompson

MOTOROLA

I worked for Motorola as a Field Engineer for almost 5 years in the Cellular Infrastructure Group. I was laid off a few months ago. 3 years ago we were tasked with training a bunch of guys from Indonesia. They worked for a company called InfraCell. we were told they were experienced technicians that needed training on current/new equipment. Most of them had never turned a screw in their lives. They supposedly all had EE degrees. We spent 6 months training them, and were under the impression they were headed back to Indonesia, and would be working in Asia someplace. They never left, but were sent out to work on other projects around the country. Motorola lied to us, and USED its own people to train them, knowing that they would lay us off and use them as replacements because they work cheaper. The kicker is that the majority of cities where Motorola used these workers to install the BTS equipment ended up getting ripped by the customer in favor of other vendors equipment. During the time that Motorola was laying off American workers, they were retaining and even still hiring H1B workers, either directly or thru companies like InfraCell. Motorola even had us write up documents under their TL9000 program. These documents were supposed to improve the quality of our work by establishment of defined methods and procedures for everything we do. These document ended up being the documents they gave to our H1B replacements to show them how to do the job that we used to do. 

The bottom line is Motorola is not the same company it was a few years ago. If Chris Galvin's grandfather could see what is happening with Motorola now he would turn over in his grave. Its disgusting. What they and other corporations are doing is destroying America from within.

Motorola: Intelligence Where? 

About to be laid off...

I work for a major US Insurance and Financial Services corporation which has been increasingly sending work off shore. They just laid off half of our department, and the rest of us will be gone by this summer. Our workplace feels more like an Indian Embassy rather than a US office. I started looking for jobs, but every job that is listed wants everything for nothing... I read most of the horror stories listed on your web site, and they confirmed by worst fears. What are we doing about it AMERICA? These companies only understand money and bottom line, so let's hit them where it hurts. Start calling the companies you deal with: banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, telephone, etc and start questioning their offshore practices. Threaten to take your business elsewhere. Stop training the H1-B's to do your jobs. Stop cleaning up their messes. Let these companies get what they pay for. They deserve it. And when they fall flat on their faces, we will see Y2K rates payable to us, the IT workers of the USA, to clean up the mess that corporate greed has created. Or we can join in and suggest that they replace American CEO's with Indian ones. Think of all the millions they will be saving.... 

As for the H1-B's "crying" on this website of how bad they have it, GO BACK HOME. 

Another thing that wasn't brought up much. With IT work moving offshore so is all the private information stored in databases such as your name, Social Security Number, tax-id, bank accounts, etc. Homeland Security???!!! It's all rhetoric. We are handing our security over to foreign countries willingly. They don't even have to hack into our systems. We give them access ourselves. 

It is time to stop the insanity and stand up for ourselves. You can also help organize a union at your place of work. Visit www.techsunite.org. We are all in this together and there is power in numbers. We don't have to take it and together we can fight it. 

Thank you for reading...

Same thing in Australia

I have seen the same thing happening in Australia. The news papers are full of stories. I was a manager a couple of years ago in an Internet company. The recruiters used to wring me up trying to push Indian developers. I used to interview them and even tried one that had a checkable history.

Bad move! You can't really check the locals references and Indian references are virtually impossible to check. You also have an issue of what you are checking against. If the quality of the general development population of a country is low and they have slightly better skills than the general population then they will appear to be superior programmers but will rate poorly in a country that is highly skilled.

Incidentally, the programmer I hired lasted two days before I sent him back. The recruiter he came from promptly rang my boss and complained that I didn't know what I was doing. I came across him latter at another agency when I was looking for another job (not related). I went for an interview with his client and delayed the process while I was waiting for a better position, which I got. I then rejected his client and rang his boss to tell him how bad he was at his job.

SP
Sydney, Australia

horror story

Try looking up Applera on the LCA database and see for yourself this company has pages and pages of H1B entries- they are amongst the WORST abusers of this system. I was laid off from an Applera corporation (Applied Biosystems) as were many, many more of my fellow programmers and believe me, everyone I heard about or knew was an American. The Indian contractors are all still there, writing crappy (take my word on this) code and getting our paychecks. These corporations are a bunch of degenerate predators, and it's OUR fault if we don't WRITE OUR CONGRESSPEOPLE. Another suggestion- write Bill O'Reilly on FOX. If we ALL email him, there's no doubt we can get Mr. Matloff on the show.

People, this system is a shotgun blast straight to the faces of our children, our wives and ourselves; this is war. Are you living on the street yet? Believe me, I've made plans for how to do it. 40k in student loans because you need a degree to get a job writing code and my government turns around and co-conspires with the Mega-corps who buy them off to destory a fair labor market and discriminate against Americans. This is not abstract- this is food for our children, their college tuitions, their future. We MUST break the back of these sub-human rapist corporations before they succeed in turning this into a two-tiered society - the mega-rich and the people who live in the street.

ACT NOW!
Another Laid-off Tech Worker

Motorola Is HUGE Abuser

When Motorola went through a "restructuring" phase our entire department basically got wiped out with the exception of about 15 people. Of those, about 90% were H1-B's and the non immigrants were management. 70 people lost their jobs, and the retention of immigrants floored me! To begin with, any company who has more than 10 thousand dollars a year in Government contracts is legally liable to give veterans preference. No veterans were retained. And now, many of my coworkers are losing their homes and vehicles because companies are using the system to basically import cheaper labor here and shove American citizens out on the street with maybe a couple months pay. Nice package for people who made that company and worked there for 10-30 years. What is 2 months pay? Yet the immigrants are living it up while America goes homeless and hungry!

Now I see that within the company, it seems the status quo to keep the cheaper, indentured labor while displacing Americans who have lived here and paid taxes all their lives, while also being the major consumer of American goods.

The H1-B's seem to favor foreign cars, foreign made clothing, and are not as large a consumer base in the entertainment industry as Americans are. They also tend to buy cheaper foreign technology in favor of American made. SO now Motorola has laid off over 100 thousand people the past 2 years, and wonders why no one is buying their goods?

The company can sit and rot as far as I am concerned because any corporation who supports such treasonous hiring practices as this is not worthy of staying in business in my mind. I for one, refuse to have anything to do with corporations who practice this illegal hiring and boycott them at all costs.

Regarding The H1

I am a Indian and i too work for a IT company In India and i do agree with most of u that The H1-B people moving to US on work permit are that effiecient / seldom know anything about their subjects, even if they know it might only be a bookish knowlegde and no real exp either in development or in training . I sometimes really wonder how the IT managers (Us) Recruits the H1b category folks without proper skills set, having a Computer science or electronics degree would that be sufficent for H1 B Software requirement.

The same discrimination is followed even in india where a Science/ Commerce graduste with computer knowledge are not recruited for they dont have CS degree / or electronics degree.

I just fail to understand one thing why The US recruiters not insist on certification on that Topics that is required for a particular Software development. 

Last week i was asked to take up recruitements for the company - i work as devloper and i found most of the resumes did not have the Skills for which they had been interviewed and they claim to have 6 - 7 years of exp.( not even fit as a trainee).

Hope better sense prevails in IT Market.

Issac Koshy

laid off twice

I was laid off 5 years ago doing the same job alongside an H1B. The H1B was kept on the job while I was laid off. I was laid off a second time 14 months ago, while hundreds of H1Bs are employed by the company. I am 61 now and have spent my whole life in the computer industry. Field Service, Software Support, Software Development. I have a Bachelors Degree and I have a Masters Degree in Software Engineering. I was rejected at all the jobs I applied for inside the company before I was laid-off. I do not expect to work again in the computer industry. I will have to find some other work at much lower pay. I teach college students part-time in Database Design and SQL and Unix Systems programming. None of these subjects can be taught by an amateur. The company name is NCR Corporation. The H1B program is a national disgrace.

-Brad Bridge

Your horror stories - an Austalain perspective

I feel deeply for the hurt and disappointed US IT workers who have found themselves replaced by H1B employees (perhaps currently many, but possibly not all, of Indian extraction).

This kind of experience is not unique to the US. I have witnessed with dismay and disappointment the same kind of situation in Australia over the past four years or so (around the time I started contracting).

I have several observations to make:

If you look around, you may discover that the experience is not limited to IT but in fact includes all sorts of other occupations, certainly the better admin type roles attached to those IT areas, and possibly banking, sales, etc.

I am equally disturbed at the prospects for the young and talented Australian kids who have a very uncertain work future and find it hard to get jobs while visa holders (includes working holiday makers in this country), are given the best jobs and many companies willingly 'bend the visa rules' to re-employ them instead of hiring locals.

Why?

After quite a bit of observation and analysis, I arrived at the very strong belief that one of the main causes was not the visa holders themselves but the recruitment companies. (which is about the only industry which has seen an incredible increase over the past ten years????).

These recruiters stand of course to make a profit every time a company turns over staff. So it is more profitable for them to manage placements as limited contracts (and people on limited visas are ideal for this), rather than suggest permanent placements (companies are reluctant to pay recruiters for permanent placements because they have to pay them a percentage of the salary. In the case of contractors, the recruiters take their cut directly from the contractor before paying him what's left(hence the apparently "lower salaries" of these staff). They may also take an extra directly from the employers.

As has been correctly pointed, the employers don't care as long as their bottom line look good. How many employers have a conscience, let alone a strong sense of national pride??!!

I don't know what the answer is at this stage, but I would not blame the situation entirely on the H1B holders. As I look around, I see exactly the same sort of thing happening in the education sector, and the quality of the education dropping accordingly.

AB
Brisbane, Australia

another horror story

IBM India a fraud?

Just another quick story. I was working with a team of 6 indians who were subcontracted through IBM India. What I noticed was astounding. Even given a very low programming task, only TWO of the team could manage the work. These two began faking the work for the other people on the team who were basically paid to take up a chair space. They were completely incompetent. 

saw it at both Kaiser-Permanente and HP

Within the past 2 1/2 years, I had the opportunity to work at both Kaiser-Permanente and HP. While at Kaiser I can honestly attest that the entire company appeared to be from the Middle East/Asia on H1B visas. I was occassionally given the job of interviewing Indian developers for H1B positions. Their resumes were impressive with all of the right buzz words. I noticed a pattern to all of these resumes. The resume described the system developed and all the components. However, whenever I pressed the hiree on what part of that system they coded I always got some vague non-commital answer. Personally, I think they go to a resume writing school to fool stupid US managers. So, I complained to Kaiser management that I felt that most of the resumes they had given me were fraudulent. Their response was: "I don't care. I can hire two of them for the price I'm paying you."

While at HP I was in the position of working with developers in Bangalore, India (I was located on the West Coast). Our project was not large from a code perspective although a lot of money had been invested into licenses and hardware. I figured two developers could probably bang-out the code within 6-8 months. I started counting the number of India developers on the project: 8!!!! They even had one developer whose specific task was labelled as creating "Ant" build files!! Excuse me, but how is it possible to just develop Ant build files and *not* write any Java??!!?? (For the non-java types, Ant is a simple XML build utility for Java... serves a similar purpose as Make). 

So, throughout the course of my contract at HP I made many recommendations on architecture, design, etc. In each and every case, HP said "Great idea. Now let's get Bangalore to code and design it." As a contractor I found this somewhat insulting. Then when Bangalore did get around to coding, it took them twice as long and the quality was really quite poor. It was about what you'd expect from someone writing their first program. As a result, I just stopped making recommendations and focused on my own tasks.

From my HP experience, I can also attest to the fact that the management treated these Indian developers like sh*t. HP management was rude, condescending and inflexible when it came to their staff in Bangalore. There was another oddity to this experience, though. In a given department there were about 40 Indian developers. Of those 40, only about 3-4 were permanent HP employees with the rest being contractors. So, when you hear about outsourcing labor to other countries, one must ask if they're getting benefits, stock options, vacation time? From seeing the pattern at HP, my guess would be "no". 

My nephew is 14 and likes to create web pages on his computer. He hopes to get a CS degree when he goes to college. He's absolutely horrified when I tell him not to do it. If I knew what I know now while I was in college, I would have gotten my Masters degree in Finance instead of in a technical discipline.

displaced and thinking IT is OUT!!!!

The company that I had been working at, American Express, had decided to offshore it's customer service IT responsibilities. I trained in house staff and the H1-B visa folks to take over the work. They brought me back once or twice because of the incompetent support being provided (NOT! -- the off-shores were not producing and by contract had 2 years to do so).

I was out of work for over a year before I accepted a position in Decatur, Illinois at ADM for a consulting company name UBICS (Indian). I went there, expecting at least freedom from the H1-B crap....... and the IT department of the company that I was contracted into was 50-75% H1-B visa Indians.

I recently interviewed at AMEX by one of the Indians that I had trained and was told by the recruiter to show up on a Monday. I did and was told that the position had been filled by an Indian over the weekend?

I have 30 years of experience and cannot get work. This is demoralizing.