This. I think I've posted here before about a friend I used to have that worked at Microsoft around 20 years ago. They hired Indians to save money, and once they got to management positions, that was it- the whole company turned pajeet.
When you go to the malls in Bellevue, where Microsoft has its HQ, you would think it's another country- easily 80% is Indian or Chinese. It's super jarring because that ethnic breakdown doesn't appear at the other malls in the area. Its like they don't leave the city.
Well, they're not outsourcing the work to India, they're bringing them over on tech worker visas.
Assuming equal skills, it makes sense: You have to pay an American $X in this job market, but foreigners are poor, so you can get away with paying them $X-Y, and they'll be happy because you also got them a ticket to the States.
There's a couple issues though: first, those guest worker visas were intended to help fill career fields that didn't have enough Americans working in them, not to help major corporations save money on salaries. The unintended consequence is that it depresses wages for the tech sector, because the American workers are forced to accept lower pay to compete with the foreigners taking their jobs.
Second, it changes the entire character of the company. In group preference is a real thing, as these imported workers rise to the ranks, they will hire more and more of their countrymen rather than similarly qualified Americans.
And, as you and others have pointed out, you get what you pay for with these employees, and it just lowers the quality of work all around as they become entrenched in the industry.
People are fungible. You can't help fill jobs that "don't have enough" Americans working in them without reducing wages. That said, I do believe there are fewer programmers in America than America needs. You'd rather some foreigners be doing the work here than foreigners doing it somewhere else. You really would. A sensible immigration system would help fill these roles. If you want white people, Eastern Europe is full of them. So you can be competitive without turning into another culture.
By the time it's even possible to look at the results, management has been talking about it so long in positive terms anyone pointing out what's really going in is committing corporate-politics-suicide by publicly talking about it.
This. I think I've posted here before about a friend I used to have that worked at Microsoft around 20 years ago. They hired Indians to save money, and once they got to management positions, that was it- the whole company turned pajeet.
When you go to the malls in Bellevue, where Microsoft has its HQ, you would think it's another country- easily 80% is Indian or Chinese. It's super jarring because that ethnic breakdown doesn't appear at the other malls in the area. Its like they don't leave the city.
Well, they're not outsourcing the work to India, they're bringing them over on tech worker visas.
Assuming equal skills, it makes sense: You have to pay an American $X in this job market, but foreigners are poor, so you can get away with paying them $X-Y, and they'll be happy because you also got them a ticket to the States.
There's a couple issues though: first, those guest worker visas were intended to help fill career fields that didn't have enough Americans working in them, not to help major corporations save money on salaries. The unintended consequence is that it depresses wages for the tech sector, because the American workers are forced to accept lower pay to compete with the foreigners taking their jobs.
Second, it changes the entire character of the company. In group preference is a real thing, as these imported workers rise to the ranks, they will hire more and more of their countrymen rather than similarly qualified Americans.
And, as you and others have pointed out, you get what you pay for with these employees, and it just lowers the quality of work all around as they become entrenched in the industry.
People are fungible. You can't help fill jobs that "don't have enough" Americans working in them without reducing wages. That said, I do believe there are fewer programmers in America than America needs. You'd rather some foreigners be doing the work here than foreigners doing it somewhere else. You really would. A sensible immigration system would help fill these roles. If you want white people, Eastern Europe is full of them. So you can be competitive without turning into another culture.
It's all about some executive getting a promotion for saving money and being long gone before the chickens come home to roost.
By the time it's even possible to look at the results, management has been talking about it so long in positive terms anyone pointing out what's really going in is committing corporate-politics-suicide by publicly talking about it.