Rightardia comment: Microsoft has been notorious for underpaying workers and would offer stock incentives to employees as an alternative. In Redmond, one in three workers is a temporary and until these workers sued, they weren't even eligible for Microsoft stock.
According to James McGuire American IT workers take a dim view of increasing H-1B visas. Not surprisingly, their stance is: hire more American workers. The Programmers Guild claims that bringing in more foreign workers will enable U.S. companies to pay $25,000 less than to equivalent American professionals.
Is there really a shortage of US IT workers? There is little hard data to support this conclusion. There are shortages of skilled workers in California and and some states in the Mid-West. IT unemployment is low compared to other career fields. But private industry also has ways to increase the pipeline of IT workers by offering scholarships and working with local colleges and universities to produce more IT graduates.
In addition,many IT students go for technical certifications rather than going through the long ordeal of getting a college degree. Many students can get Comptia, Microsoft and Cisco certifications in less than six months.
Meanwhile, employers have to raise salaries, bonuses and benefits to keep the IT workers they have. It is easy to understand why corporations would like to hire more workers form India who will accept smaller salaries.
Is this really good for a developing country to send its 'smart people' to work in the US? One of the problems in India has been a lack of doctors. A village would save up money to send a bright young person to the US to become a doctor so he or she could come back to the village to care for the people there. All too often, the young man or woman would stay in the US and never return to help the villagers.
There are also cultural issues. The standard myth is the US is this great 'melting pot' in which all the nationalities get along and sing 'Kumbayah.' The reality is there are still big ethnic and racial tensions in the US. Rather than a melting pot, most major US cities have a series of ethnic neighbourhoods that have been around since the 1900s.
Does bringing in workers to the US that have significant ethnic and religious differences with the general population really benefit the country in the long run? Are we really just creating a another ethnic ghetto?
NEW DELHI: Microsoft founder Bill Gates said it would be a "big mistake" if the US imposes curbs on the entry of skilled workers from abroad, putting his weight behind "smart people" from countries like India who want to work overseas.
"I can't make any predictions. Immigration policy could get more difficult. Microsoft as a company is very vocal. It would be a big mistake," Gates, here for overseeing the philanthropic activities of his foundation, said in an interaction with India Inc.
"The US Congress is very tough on immigration. But why not make an exception for smart people?" said Gates while addressing an interactive session organised by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom).
Even though Gates now devotes most of his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he has always been vocal about his support for migrant professionals that is reflected in the number of such workers at the Microsoft offices in the US.
Gates said he was also keen to partner India in its ambitious plan to issue a single identity card and number to its 1.17 billion citizens for which a new authority has been formed under Infosys Technologies co-founder Nandan Nilekani.
"Microsoft wants to be part of the Unique Identification Authority of India project," he said, adding that he hoped to meet with Nilekani to discuss the issue.
http://infotech.indiatimes.com/News/Bill-Gates-US-curbs-on-talent-a-mistake/articleshow/4816068.cms
Get 30 days of free traffic analysis simply by going to Web-Stat: http://www.web-stat.com/?id=2955
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu
Improve blog traffic with TrafficG http://trafficg.com/splash/splash01.php?uid=eelder1
Netcraft rank: 30670
No comments:
Post a Comment