251–260 of 507 posts
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In New Zealand, we also have this thing called "Kiwi Experience". I think it's just an excuse to pay someone who is new to the country because they have no "Kiwi Experience". Mind you, some or maybe even most immigrants (at least from my country) have at least 3+ years experience. Job experience means more points for Immigiration NZ.
What if I just moved in, but I've eaten plenty of kiwis in my life?
"Oracle was far more likely to hire Asian applicants - particularly Indian people - for product development and technical roles than black, white or Hispanic job seekers." Can the DOL back up this claim with salary data to see if Oracle is abusing the H1-B visa system by purposefully keeping wages low? Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available (larger proport…
" Most of the time it is just easier to hire Asian/Indian employees because they are readily available " - I doubt that. It's "easier" to hire because they "agree" to lower wages and its easier to retain them, because their visa status is tied to the employer. The employers have H1B workers on a leash. The process of hiring an H1B worker in short. - Hire an immigration lawyer. - Post an LCA. - Apply petition to USCIS…
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Not saying that I agree with quotas as a solution to problems like discriminatory biases in hiring, but how is a quota system "discriminatory"? What race, sex or age group is discriminated against by a requirement that appropriate proportions of those demographics make up the companies employees? (Heck in most cases quotas are simply a low bar, they are not even proportional to the population demographics.) I can und…
Sure people with the right skills are being discriminated against if they aren't in one of the favored groups. There is also no quota for white people or men. In my company these groups seem pretty underrepresented in some departments. Maybe they should do blind tests like government often does.
The exception is Asians. Asians are vastly overrepresented. I don't think this is a bad thing. It is meritocracy in action. But it violates the common notion that meritocracy and equality are the same thing.
[1] http://www.unz.com/gnxp/silicon-valley-has-an-asian-people-p...
If you walk the floors of Oracle office in California, you are not going to feel like you are working in the US. It almost feels like an Indian enclave. In my opinion, this is a bad thing. In the Database division, the division that also makes most of the money for Oracle, most people including Directors, VPs, SVPS, etc. are Indians. Many are Chinese too. They have been in this company for the last 10 to 20 years. Th…
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Meritocracy is great. Just when everyone has equal access to education.
I'd argue that it's not the jobs of universities or employers to try to "fudge the difference" between actual outcomes and what they believe outcomes should be. By that I mean, just because not everybody has equal access to education doesn't mean employers and universities should be lowering their hiring standards (like it or not, this is what affirmative action necessitates) for people belonging to groups that on av…
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>It's always going to be possible to find data that indicates discrimination, unless companies hire in exact quotas (which would also be discriminatory really). There already are off-the-record quotas. Who in management hasn't heard discussion at least eluding the the need for a diversity hire? Probably very few people at this point. I believe a distinction must be made: Equality of opportunity is good. Equality of o…
You know what, though? If we actually had equality of opportunity, it doesn't seem like we'd see the kind of disparity we do. Certainly not at a big corporation where there should be enough of an employee pool to have it at least somewhat reflect the general population of the region. But then, when I listen to the stories women in tech (for example) tell, and they do tell a LOT of the same stories, it's clear we're p…
Unfortunately, in our political climate one side of this debate has people who can say, "it seems like" and that's it. "It seems like" [...] 'we have a huge problem of sexism and racism' and if you argue against that you're this evil monster, as you described:
>most people [don't] even give a shit about equality of opportunity, even those who pay lip service to it. I think most people don't want to be challenged on anything that makes them the slightest bit uncomfortable (like having unconscious biases or structural racism pointed out).
The fact is we already have things like state-sponsored racist entrance policies to our most prestigious educational programs. In law school, it can be several standard deviations worth of LSAT points-- that is a VERY big deal. Even pointing this out, though, means someone is going to flip this on its head and misconstrue it, calling me the evil monster you described.
As I said in another comment, you're never going to see equality of outcome. The NBA will never be dominated by people of Asian descent. Women will never be asking for equal "opportunity" working jobs in the north sea on offshore oil rigs. Women will always have longer lifespans and higher average IQs than men. Men will always have more statistical outliers existing in the "fat tails" of male distributions relative to distributions of women. People are different. It doesn't mean better, or worse. For example, I'm not that exceptionally good at maths, but my friend is -- he's not any better of a person than I, though, and no sane person would make that argument. There's nothing wrong with being different. Demanding that everyone be the same will end up with us in Harrison Bergeron's world, and in that long-run scenario everyone ends up losing except those who take joy in ruling over others.
I believe it important to ensure everyone has equal outcome with respect to human rights, civil rights, and human dignity. There is no good reason why we cannot provide everyone with these. I believe that's where attention should be focused, and we're getting off track by pretending everyone is the same and demanding that the only reason for anything else is that the NBA is racist against Asians! (or coding companies are racist/sexists against whomever it is that doesn't have coding jobs).
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You know what, though? If we actually had equality of opportunity, it doesn't seem like we'd see the kind of disparity we do. Certainly not at a big corporation where there should be enough of an employee pool to have it at least somewhat reflect the general population of the region. But then, when I listen to the stories women in tech (for example) tell, and they do tell a LOT of the same stories, it's clear we're p…
> But then, when I listen to the stories women in tech (for example) tell, and they do tell a LOT of the same stories, it's clear we're pretty far from equality of opportunity. From the stories that made it to the front of HN (and the stories that made it into the main-steam media) - almost without exception - each case ( after it had its full run ) turned out to be a false narrative driven by the need of someone to…
If you incentivize sob stories about women in tech, you get sob stories about women in tech.
Who in their right mind would want to work for oracle in 2017? That's like fighting for a gig at DEC circa 1997. They're doing candidates a favor by refusing them entrance on the Titanic.
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You know what, though? If we actually had equality of opportunity, it doesn't seem like we'd see the kind of disparity we do. Certainly not at a big corporation where there should be enough of an employee pool to have it at least somewhat reflect the general population of the region. But then, when I listen to the stories women in tech (for example) tell, and they do tell a LOT of the same stories, it's clear we're p…
I completely agree with you but I'm not sure that we should tackle this problem by targeting employers alone, I think it is a much wider reaching social problem. Discriminatory hiring practices are but one of many symptoms of the disease.
Is the social problem that the discriminated are pushed to 'over achieve' while the rest have no expectations placed on them and are more likely to fall into whatever work is available? I think this definitely holds true for the tech profession where for many of us the jobs appeared as extension to hobbies, not something we actually sat down to plan to do.
If we were pressured to go to school and get a good, well respected, job above all else – which I think we can say certain segments of the population are – the path into tech would have been far less obvious. Especially when you go back several years ago, before tech was 'cool', but even now doctor or lawyer sounds better than programmer.
> technology company systematically paid its white, male employees more than other workers and unlawfully favored Asian applicants in its recruiting and hiring efforts. Wow...this is big.
And also not believable. The idea Oracle had a system that paid white guys more because they were white guys isn't credible without more than just salary evidence.