What's so special about an engineer brought in from India or China that we have to hire him over an American?
Hundreds of thousands of 'temporary' foreign workers come into the United States on work visas. Now, it's great that they have high skills and all, and I have no doubt they contribute well. But where's the proof that the United States has run out of engineers? Where's the proof that Americans don't want to study nursing or medicine? Last time I checked, medical school admissions rates were around 10% here! Shouldn't coming and working in America be a privilege that comes AFTER US citizens are shown to be unable to do the job, rather than a right?
Politics - 12 Answers
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1 :
$$$
2 :
An engineer from India or China probably aced all their engineering classes at UNM or the U of A anyway... but they got scholarships our own countrymen couldn't get.
3 :
They probably don't ask for as much as money as would an American engineer. That's capitalism at work.
4 :
they are cheaper simples oh and the majority of them buy their degrees on the net, i have the pleasure of working with a load of the dumb ass mofo's i wouldn't pay them in chocolate buttons the pass rate for degrees in malasia is 30% and you get 10% for spelling your name right
5 :
Hehe you say that...but everywhere i look in India i see an engineer...Why are there so many of them?!! its also sad to know that our country's resource is running off to your country. If anything it is brain drain. However,it is sad that american engineers aren't getting much work. hopefully your new 'nobel' winning (i don't even know why he got that!) president changes stuff for you. cheers. ;) and yes they are pretty cheaper,because well lets face it...our countries are in a worse economic condition... than yours. ;)
6 :
doesn't civil rights law mandate the foreigner is hired special? nothing. 1 more vote for the dems
7 :
its called a free market - you know american the "free",, hahaha you guys so funny
8 :
They will work for cheap wages.
9 :
We have a similar situation here in the UK. I only speak from experience here in the Construction industry. I hate to say this,but as an employer,I have found that foreign workers have a superior work attitude. They are more reliable and take less time off through sickness, A lot of time is lost here,due to the vast amounts of alcohol and illegal drugs consumed by British workers,many of them thing it perfectly acceptable to come to work with "hang-overs",not realising that their efficiency and safety are compromised. I have found that very few of the temporary workers have this attitude. I always try to give work to home grown workers,my attitude costs me a great deal of time and money, The truth is,if British workers had the"foreign" attitude,we could be a great producing nation once again. I spend a lot of time in the USA,from what I have seen,you seem to have the same social problems as us,perhaps the American employers have come to the same conclusion as me.
10 :
All the parts are made in china or india so the firms want to hire people that can read the manuals.
11 :
Engineers from India and China are willing to work for lesser money. The H-1B visa program allows US Companies to tap into talented people from other countries but it also is being abused by companies who would rather pay someone with an H-1B visa because they can pay them cheaper wages. There really isn't a shortage of Engineers in the US. Most are unemployed or working in another field. There will eventually be a shortage of engineers since US Citizens realize that the field of engineering can be outsourced to other countries and they cannot compete against H-1B applicants for jobs in the USA. This will continue to get worse when the limit on the amount of H-1B visas is lifted.
12 :
I think that it's because most engineering students these days are foreign students. It's not a bad thing to allow foreign students into our universities; when smart people from other countries decide to immigrate to the USA it has the effect of making our population more educated and smart overall. Every country wants highly educated, talented, and intelligent immigrants, it's always the uneducated people that each nation wants to prevent coming into its borders. I think what used to happen is that there were fewer foreign students, and many of those foreign students decided to become Americans. So, companies were more frequently hiring American citizens. Now there are many more foreign students, for one thing, and I also think that fewer of them decide to actually become Americans. They may want to work in the USA, but they want to retain their original nationality and aim to go back to their home country. If the majority of engineering students are foreign students, and the majority of them go back home, then the majority of US trained engineers in each graduating class is non-American and probably based abroad. So, I think that in order to really get the same size hiring pool as they've always had, companies are forced to look more and more in other countries. I was a physics and math major in college, so I knew quite a few engineering students (we had some classes in common). I don't know a single one of them who is an American citizen who is unemployed. Of course, it's not a statistical sample, but I think that any American citizen who is a decent engineer can find a job. I'm talking about the younger generation here. For older engineers, it may be more difficult to find a job for entirely different reasons. I don't know exactly why so many students in science, math and engineering are foreign. I have an idea based on my own experience of applying to physics grad school: these students (especially students from Eastern Europe and Asia) have insanely high test scores and really good grades. Also, from my experience in the physics field, they as a group have a much better understanding of their subject than American students (again, as a group). It is really tough competition to get into a school when you're up against students like that, and it's tough to compete for jobs against people that qualified. American students are often better in other ways, in terms of creativity and the ability to work independently, but those traits don't show up so well on paper. Basically, our science and math education at the high school and middle school level is pretty crappy comparatively, and I think that this whole issue is really rooted in that fact. The lack of education at a young age hinders us later in the form of college (or grad school) admissions, and when it comes to finding a job. BTW, I don't know if this still happens (I think it does), but when my dad graduated from an American university in the 70s and was looking for a job afterwards, they had to advertise it publicly for a certain amount of time before they could give it to a non-American citizen.
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