Thursday, April 23, 2009

The Lowdown on H1B

OR

How Onagh ended up in Las Vegas.......

 

I was reading Craigslist today, scanning for jobs and what not, when I came across a reply to a post about the H1B Visa holders.  It really is a perfect summary of what has happened in this country over the past 7 years:

 

Here's the lowdown on H1B's:

Technically, companies are only supposed to apply for them if they can't find any American qualified to do the job, and technically, they're supposed to pay the H1B worker a fair wage for the work.

Here's the catch: "Fair wage" is a real subjective term.

Here's the other catch: The H1B workers have good educations. It's true. There are a number of colleges in India and Hungary that are every bit as good as an American university. The difference? In those countries, they don't have to pay to go to school. They go for free, get their degree for free.

Meanwhile, here in the good old US of A, we're all at least $100,000 in debt the moment we get handed our degrees, and have student loans to pay.

So here's what happens: You're qualified for a job. Say, Systems Analyst, with an average starting salary of about 60k a year. A nice white collar job. You go in, you nail the interview, they ask what your wage expectations are, you say...55k, just cause you want the job that badly. A living wage and enough to keep Sallie Mae off your back on those loans.

They then turn around and tell the government "nope, couldn't find anybody qualified, we need an H1B visa". They then import Hajii, who's so grateful to be leaving his dirt shack in India that he's willing to work for 35,000 a year. Sure he'll live like a bum, but he'll live like an AMERICAN bum. And since he doesn't have to worry about things like student loans, it costs him less to be here.

The American worker simply can't compete with that. The American worker NEEDS a higher wage to pay off those loans and to live with any sense of comfort whatsoever. $35,000 a year is a joke. You know it, the company that hired Hajii knows it, everyone knows it. But the company will do it because it saves them cash on their bottom line in exchange for a little white lie, and you're stuck living hand to mouth wondering why you can't land a job.

The whole thing is a scam.


http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/forums/?ID=118993052