"Deja Vu All Over Again," Part I
Dr. Norm Matloff : October 17 , 2007

The following commentary is provided by Dr. Norm Matloff, a professor of computer science at the University of California at Davis

CLICK HERE TO READ PART II OF DR. MATLOFF'S COMMENTARY

The world of H-1B politics is one of David and Goliath. "Goliath" here is the industry and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), with their huge clout stemming from campaign donations to politicians, and their hiring "the best and the brightest" slick, deceptive PR people in the world. "David" is programmers and engineers who lack money and time to spend, who sometimes are not completely informed about details, and who often are betrayed by organizations that putatively represent them.


One key to Goliath's success is lack of continuity and memory. Anti-H-1B activists come and go; congressional staffers (if not the politicians) come and go; journalists come and go. So, for those of us who've been around for a while, we see a continuing succession of "news" which is old.


I'm enclosing two articles here from BusinessWeek--first one from this month, and then one from 1998. The latter could easily have been written today.


The first article below, dated October 10, is very long and of generally very good quality, but it can be boiled down to one point which I've tried to make repeatedly over the years: THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET REGARDING H-1B IS THAT IT IS FUNDAMENTALLY ABOUT AGE. Younger workers are cheaper than older ones, and H-1B then gives the employers access to a large pool of young workers.


That is the CORE of the H-1B issue. Yes, younger H-1Bs cost even less than younger Americans, but that's just icing on the cake.


That's what's really going on with Rennie Sawade in that first article. Microsoft would probably say that they didn't hire him because his quality is not up to their standards. The article here implies that Sawade's problem is that he doesn't have specific skill sets of value to Microsoft. But those arguments just don't hold water, because Microsoft has hired Sawade for contract work. Instead, his real problem, in Microsoft's eyes, is that he is 44 years old. Actually, many people even in their mid-30s start finding barriers to employment in this field.


Please note that I'm not faulting the journalist here. Overall she's done a very good job. And BusinessWeek itself deserves praise, for the many excellent articles it's run on this and related topics over the years. But it would be nice if there were some memory in the system.


A number of us were pointing out the central nature of the age issue back in 1998. As a result, the bill passed by Congress that year to increase the H-1B cap directed that a study be done on the question, Do older programmers and engineers have trouble finding work in their field? The study was done, and even though the study was heavily biased in favor of the industry (the commission included reps from Intel, Microsoft etc.), THE ANSWER WAS YES. It was spun in a manner which protected industry, but the answer was YES, older programmers and engineers have trouble finding work in their field.


Since that time other studies have elaborated on this central point, and have connected it to the H-1B issue. In my case, I analyzed this in detail in my 2003 article in the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform (http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/MichJLawReform.pdf) and last year in an article written at the invitation of a branch of the California State Bar (http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/CLER.pdf).


The first enclosed article below unfortunately buys into the standard arguments that industry lobbyists have used so well over the years but which have shown to be invalid. To cite just one example, the unemployment rate is NOT a good way to tell whether there is a shortage of programmers or engineers, for the simple reason that those workers leave the field when they can't find work; one does have to pay the mortgage or rent, after all. So, as Gene Nelson put it so well, the former programmer who is now working as a security guard counts in the government data as an employed security guard, not an unemployed programmer. (For a more scientific statement of the same point, see Carol Veneri, Can Occupational Labor Shortages Be Identified Using Available Data?, Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 1999.) Pass it on: H-1B is about age. Norm


Dr. Matloff suggests reading the following (2) articles:


BusinessWeek, October 10, 2007 The Great Tech Worker Divide

Business Week: June 29, 1998 IS THERE REALLY A TECHIE SHORTAGE?

http://www.numbersusa.com/news?ID=8953