Morning routines, most people have them, some more consistent than others. One thing that’s very consistent about my morning routine is first forcing my overweight Lab off the covers so I can escape the bed. Then I proceed to the computer. I quickly glance at e-mails, and pending verification that nothing blew up over night, I visit the online sports sections of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. (For those of you reading from the twin cities, The Dean and Shooter columns, specifically).
Why am I reading those columns? Well, here in Chicago, the Minnesota Twins and the Minnesota Vikings information is not easy to come by. As an avid fan of both, I want to know what’s going on with my favorite teams first thing in the morning. Two weeks ago I came across an article about a potential starting pitcher by the name of Sidney Ponson. At that time, Sydney had not yet reported to Spring training. Now this guy’s on a pretty short leash as is; not showing up to Spring training is a bad idea, especially if he wants to resurrect his career.
Before I tell you why I am even mentioning Mr. Ponson, first I need to fill you in on another topic that is closely related. There is a heated debate raging here in the United States about immigration. While the debate mainly centers on illegal immigration, it’s impossible to talk about the illegal side of it without also looking at the legalized side. Some people in the US favor a guest worker program that allows citizens of other countries to legally enter our country. They enter the country for a certain period of time to “perform work Americans are unwilling to do.” Then they return back to their home country once the seasonal work has been done. Strangely enough, this all ties into both my Twins pitcher, Mr. Ponson, who did not show for training camp, and tech companies, who need to hire people from other countries to do the work “Americans are unwilling to do.”
Sidney Ponson hasn’t made it to Ft. Myers, Florida for Spring training because he’s a citizen of Aruba. He has yet to obtain a visa to travel back to the US from his home country (punching a judge on a beach tends to cause those sorts of problems). Ponson is not alone. A very large percentage of baseball players, as compared to workers in other industries, are in fact either citizens of, or were born in countries outside of the States. None of these individuals have problems getting into the US to do their work. But unlike the debate currently raging about allowing people into the country that are doing jobs that Americans are unwilling to do, the foreign born baseball players are here doing jobs that American’s are unable to do! Twins two-time Cy-Young winning pitcher Johan Santana of Venezuela has a change up that as of today, no American born pitcher can match (yes I realize some baseball fans out there might argue that point, but you are wrong!). As a result, we have no problem letting him come here to “work.”
Well, there are industries outside of the sports and entertainment world that can utilize the services of foreign residents. They can be used to perform duties, that as a whole, most available in the American workforce are unable to perform. Highly skilled workers gain access to this country via means of the H-1B visa. The H-1B visa is provided to workers with a minimum of at least a bachelors degree equivalent in education. These visa holders are sponsored by a company that can show why it is extremely difficult to find an American who can perform the same job functions.
While it’s estimated that over ten million immigrants currently reside in the US illegally, they may eventually be able to gain legalized status through a series of tests, fines, and time. The government currently only issues 65,000 H-1B visas per year. Think this sounds like a lot? Well, think about how many people are employed by Microsoft, DELL, John Deer, Dow Chemical, and any other tech company, not just communications companies. Most of those companies I just mentioned employ more than 65,000 employees – each. When it comes time for companies such as FastServers.Net to try and sponsor an employee via an H-1B visa, well you guessed it, no such luck. I’m not going to argue in favor of or against additional H-1B visas, but I am going to provide some points that you should think about that factor into your own personal opinion.
Two years ago FastServers.Net spent a lot of time and money on the process to attempt to gain access for a “would be” employee from India. This particular employee was both native to that country and could provide administrative services on various server platforms (which we needed at the time). Since we have a large amount of customers from that region, this individual could have proven to be a very valuable asset to us. Finding someone with experience in multiple server administration platforms is hard enough. Add fluent natural language skills and knowledge of the Indian culture, I’d say we have what’s qualified as a job that an American can’t perform. FastServers.Net is not alone in this concept.
Tens of thousands of companies like ours have a multitude of reasons to hire people from outside of the US for very selective tasks. From what I have presented so far, it’s very easy to say the US should increase the amount of visas being given each year. After all, outsourcing is a reality in the technology industry. Think about this for a second. Would we rather send our dollars overseas, or bring the overseas talent into the States and reinvest those dollars into the US economy. And that is exactly the point of the current debate going on in our country. Regardless if you’re a recent graduate in the technology field, or if you’re a long-term veteran of the “Telco” days, an increased amount of H-1B visas directly threatens your own personal job security.
My most recent blog post demonstrated some issues regarding the linguistic “disconnect” between companies and their outsourced support staff. An increase in the amount of H-1Bs will not fix that. Nor will these work passes into the US make the labor costs of outsourcing a technology department to another country any less advantageous. Regardless, the high-tech industry in the US sends billions of dollars each year overseas. Sometimes it’s due to corporate greed. Other times it’s due to lack of available resources. So the real question that politicians have to balance is does restricting legalized skilled labor from overseas damage qualified Americans’ ability to get jobs, or does it instead bring tax dollars into the country that would otherwise be sent across the ocean.
All opinions aside, there are a few basic facts I should share with you:
• Every year countries such as India continue to make quick advances in the sciences, thus increasing the amount of highly skilled workers in their population.
• Every year the amount of companies outsourcing IT jobs continues to increase.
• If this country opened legalized immigration to skilled workers, select American jobs would be lost.
As a country, our choices are easy to decipher, yet not so easy to evaluate from an overall impact standpoint:
1. We can continue to limit the amount of H-1B visas and watch billions leave the country while losing the opportunity for a brain import as opposed to drain. This however, will also give thousands of US citizens opportunities to obtain jobs that might otherwise be taken by individuals, whom as immigrants to the country, are willing to accept for much lower compensation.
2. We can start allowing universities in other countries to educate their citizens (not costing our government a dime) and then allow those that choose to immigrate to the United States become some of our most brightest and productive citizens. This can be done while keeping money in this country. The downside to this argument is what stops companies from outsourcing cheaper labor overseas anyway and cherry picking the people they want to import into their US offices?
Bill Gates has provided his opinion on this publically. You can read about it at the following web site:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/473893dc-ccde-11db-a938-000b5df10621.html
Many of the CEO heroes in the industry have spoken up about it as well. And a quick Google search will give you a review of their thoughts, opinions, and overall views on the subject. No matter where you stand on this debate, it is impossible to ignore. Perhaps higher education institutions in India will start teaching the curve ball to all graduates. If that were the case, there would be nothing left to debate!
UPDATED NOTE: Much of this blog was written seven days before publishing. As of publishing Sidney Ponson has obtained his visa and has pitched in one Spring training “B” game. “Cheer for the Minnesota Twins today!”
Technical Information On The H-1B Visa:
The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa category provided for in the Immigration & Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H) that allows American companies and universities to temporarily employ foreign workers who have the equivalent to a US Bachelor's Degree. The basic quota was left at 65,000, but with an additional 20,000 visas possible for foreign workers with US advanced degrees. Of the 65,000 total, 6,800 are initially reserved for citizens of Chile and Singapore under free trade agreements with those countries, however, if these reserved visas are not used under the agreements, they go back to the general pool. Outside of the 65,000 quota, another 10,500 visas annually are available to Australian citizens under a similar but more flexible program, the E-3 visa program.
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