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America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

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Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#311

Post by graycat »

noobermin wrote: post #268
DataWorker wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion is obviously contradicted by the facts. The American education system is a major reason people immigrate here in the first place. Many of the best universities and research centers in the world happen to be in America. You may have some gripe about your kid’s teacher or whatever, but if you feel that a single data point from a parent’s biased perspective is more informative than the facts and statistics,…

Private, elite prep schools and colleges in the US are the best. The average college or high school is dismal compared to the rest of the world. We consistently score below the average of OECD countries.

Do the comparison again controlling on country of origin. E.g., how do US citizen students with families from Japan compare with students still in Japan? Instead of Japan, substitute Canada, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, England, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, the Baltic countries, the Balkan countries, Austria, Switzerland, Israel, Poland, Russia, France, Spain, Italy, Singapore, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, the Gulf States, North Africa including Egypt, West Africa, Central Sub-Saharan Africa, East Africa, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, ....

The US is a uniquely diverse country, and such a diverse country necessarily will have a tough time competing in average performance scores with better countries that are not diverse and, instead, have a quite uniform culture. So, right away on average scores, the US will have a tough time competing with much of Europe and the better Asian countries.

Also understand that the famous, prestigious US universities -- Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, MIT, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Columbia, most of the SUNY schools, most of the Big Ten, CMU, Chicago, U. Washington, most of the University of California campuses, Stanford, Caltech, University of Texas, Rice, Georgia Tech, etc. are RESEARCH universities and do not concentrate on technical or vocational training for software developer positions where H1Bs are common.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#312

Post by pastor_elm »

shados wrote: post #237
geff82 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berlin is the worst place if you want to have a good paying job. If you only want to work for startups, then Berlin is the place to go. But if you are open to work in Big Enterprise IT, then there are many places where you can work and earn very good salaries (especially Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg where Enterprise IT usually pays between 80k$-140k$ depending on your role). While taxes and contributions for singles ar…

> 80k$-140k$ Thats the problem. You used the dollar symbol, but even if its euros, the upper range you gave is 160k. That's way, way too low for an upper range if someone's thinking of salaries on one of the US' coasts (especially west, but also east). Insurance is mostly for if you lose your job...as long as you have one, its a pretty tiny part of the paychecks, retirement matching is pretty common, food isn't that…

If you want to make 600k as a software developer, stay in San Francisco, live in your 2.5 million dollar .2 acre ranch house, and enjoy walking over homeless people on your way to work.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#313

Post by throwingay5556 »

The option that isn't being discussed is the one that would align the interests of the working class in America and the immigrant population. Namely, a federal job guarantee for everyone in the country with a minimum standard of living and the requirement that everyone be treated the same. If the buisness community can't stomach that, then maybe they shouldn't get any desperate immigrants that essentially function like scabs because of the way they engineered the system. Our true enemy is the elites and the business community. Immigrants are just ordinary and often desperate people who deserve our kindness. Rise up!

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#314

Post by kaybe »

seshagiric wrote: post #165
iguy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not on a 1-for-1 basis, but something like this is the argument for allowing free movement between comparable countries. If the UK, Canada & Australia opened up to each other, there'd be no massive net flow, but many individuals could work for the most suitable company / near their in-laws / in a climate they like. This was I think also what was envisaged when the EU first wrote free movement into law -- general mixi…

EU folks can work any where in the EU right? I wonder how it is working out

Places to rent in cities in Germany are getting harder and harder to find because we have so many migrants, most of them from the EU. This is about the only problem we have with it locally, but it is getting annoying. The housing market is not very flexible and takes a while to catch up.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#315

Post by sosborn »

dev_dull wrote: post #109
ransom1538 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish it was reciprocated. I would like to work in Spain (no really). If I work in Spain, the US should open a spot for someone from Spain to work in the US. You want to hire someone from Turkey? No problem, find someone in the US to move to Turkey. You could allow companies to even grease the wheels, "Work from Turkey and get a 30k / year extra free bonus stipend!! yay!!"

There’s obvious brain-drain problems. Turkey doesn’t want it’s smartest people moving and working here. Nor is it in the interest of the US for high skilled workers to go abroad.

I'd argue that it is in our (U.S.) best interest for highly skilled worked to go abroad for a short period of time (2 years?). Being exposed to different ways of living can do wonders for creative thinking.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#316

Post by nostrademons »

i_phish_cats wrote: post #300
CodeMage wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who focuses mostly on universities is forgetting that you have years of education to go through before getting to the university.

Well, as long as we are speaking in hyperbole, everyone needs to realize that K-12 CS education needs CS teachers, who are disproportionately not those international students who either get cushy jobs in SV or go home.

You're getting at the root of the problem: teaching in the U.S. is a low-paid, low-status position. Teaching in other countries is a decently-paid, high-status position. This directly translates into job desirability and ability to attract qualified candidates.

I had some good teachers growing up, as well as a number of bad ones. The good ones all fell into one of these categories: 1) they were young and idealistic 2) they were doing a sabbatical or gap-two-years before going back to their day job as a children's book author, radio astronomer, or medical student 3) they were an independently-wealthy trust fund kid on a mission to do good. I also had some Google coworkers that taught CS in elementary school; they also fell into the "independently wealthy and semi-retired" category.

I come from a family of 3 generations of teachers, but when my starting salary as a computer programmer was within $3K of my mom's retirement salary as a teacher and I made more in 7 years of programming than she did in 39 years of teaching, it's very difficult to justify entering the profession.

(My mom also has stories about the cultural differences in how people treat teachers. The parents of her Asian students would bring her gifts, always treat her with respect, and effusively compliment her on the difference she was making in their child's lives. The parents of many - not all - of her native-born students would treat her like a glorified babysitter, yell at her, threaten legal action, and generally take a complete disinterest in their children's lives. You get what you value.)

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#317

Post by leereeves »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #242
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I almost got one job, but the company decided to go with an H-1B worker instead. This scenario is explicitly forbidden by the provisions of the visa program and it is illegal to select a guest worker in preference to a domestic candidate. That is why there is a public notification requirement for all jobs open to guest workers. Obviously all it takes is one minor reason to deem you unqualified. The Disney IT incide…

They can go get hired elsewhere I suppose. Does it rise to 'abuse'? Who is entitled to a particular job anyway?

Who is "entitled" to work in America is defined by the law, which disallows replacing American workers with H1B recipients.

Are you suggesting that everyone in the world should have the right to live and work in America?

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#318

Post by Metricon »

50 wrote: post #221
QuercusMax wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, didn't realize this was a comedy site. Speaking from personal experience, the number of people with multiple years of experience and multiple degrees in CS (usually BS and MS) who can't pass FizzBuzz is really high .

Is the correct and most efficient way to solve it? #include using namespace std; int main() { for (int i = 1; i

Technically, this would be more efficient:

  #include 
  using namespace std;
  
  int main() {
    for (int i = 1; i
But most interviewers are interested in the basic logic of the process.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#319

Post by scottlocklin »

CodeMage wrote: post #290
DataWorker wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion is obviously contradicted by the facts. The American education system is a major reason people immigrate here in the first place. Many of the best universities and research centers in the world happen to be in America. You may have some gripe about your kid’s teacher or whatever, but if you feel that a single data point from a parent’s biased perspective is more informative than the facts and statistics,…

Maybe it's my fault, but I haven't found "easily accessible data" on the quality of elementary and middle school education, which is something a lot of people seem to be ignoring in this discussion. Sure, people might be motivated to immigrate here by your universities. Even when I was a teenager growing up in an Eastern European country, I had heard of MIT and dreamed of studying there. But there's a long road to go…

Google "PISA scores"

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#320

Post by bookbinder »

CodeMage wrote: post #226
firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

> Both of these would ensure that we can get smart and talented individuals from outside the US and would drastically improve the ability for the US to compete while continuing to provide broad-based wage increases. As an immigrant, I'm all for better and easier immigration system. As a parent of an 11 year old, I can tell you that what your country really needs is not more smart and talented immigrants, but better e…

How are U.S. schools failing students? What should they be doing/teaching instead?

Where did you go to school? How did your education differ from what you've seen in America?

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