The outsourcing and insourcing has got to STOP!!

can you learn SAP / ABAP?

It takes months for my company to make a 'permanent' hire. And too often it is a non-citizen. I don't understand why more Americans don't learn ABAP.

I don't fall for the low wage story in this case. If a programmer with a few years experience is having trouble getting a job, why not take a job for "only" 40 or 50K when with enough years you will top out somewhere in 6 figures, or at least very near it? It's better than not working.

I just don't get why it is so hard to find people with that skill, and yet our unemployment rate is so high.

If an employer would let my learn on the job, I'd jump at it, but we both know that isn't going to happen.

Regarding taking a low wage job, at my age taking a 40k to 50k job is taking a job for the rest of my career that won't even pay my expenses.

That said, I haven't had any offers at any price.

but for SAP you would really need a guide or mentor. (ABAP is the programming language of SAP.)

It is very frustrating to me. I don't have the time to do this on my own, but I wish the government would incentivize or pressure companies to cross-train Americans with related backgrounds in the skills that are needed now, rather than letting companies just hire cheaper labor from overseas with one of these visa programs. The other question I have is why it is so friggin' hard to find Americans with the right skills. My company hired me and they pay me well enough, so it isn't like they refuse to pay a decent salary. I think they genuinely look for a certain skillset and just can't find Americans who fit. (who aren't already employed. Go to a tech conference and it is plenty diverse, including Americans - there just aren't enough of us being trained for the jobs that are here.)

in some list of technologies.

I can remember a time when a comp sci degree along with paid experience as a developer was enough to get a job. They knew that you could quickly learn what was needed.

Unfortunately, you now have non-technical people standing between you and the job and all they see is a list of required skills and don't understand just how interchangeable many of them are and that the learning curve would be very short.

Why should American invest in a technical education if they can't earn enough to pay off their college loans?

I was recently laid off due to a reduction in force. I was in Corporate HR, not on contract as most of the employees are. And a fairly good number of these employees are working under an H-1B. I'd not had any experience with immigration visas until I accepted this job and I can honestly tell you that after two years, I now have knowledge of how this process works - and I'm completely stunned by how easily the Government allows this.

Under an H-1B the foreign worker must hold an advanced degree - that is one requirement. And the company sponsoring the H-1B must be able to show that the foreign worker is not replacing an American worker. To me, this is the most bogus part of the entire process. This process itself takes an extraordinary amount of time to go through and an incredible amount of paperwork and money. The visas that I was tasked with helping to process were for software engineers, programmers and designers. There were also a large number of physical and occupational therapists as well as nurses in our medical division. I can go into long, drawn out detail as to what is required while filing for the H-1B, but I won't bore you with all of that. But what I will say is that I never saw anything that proved these jobs could not be filled by American workers - there were pages upon pages of documents with everything from the jobs they held in their native country, to their resumes, job descriptions and passports. Mind boggling details - but never anything as to why we could not find an American worker to fill any of these positions. One especially troubling aspect of this type of visa is that the company must pay the H-1B visa holder even if there is no work. And you must provide them with the same benefits as you would any other worker - and the benefits can't be terminated, even if the worker goes on leave of absence for extended periods of time.

The other aspect of this is when their visas are due to expire, you must re-file with the USCIS. More paperwork, more money and if you change their job title for whatever reason, you must pay them the going wage in your region for that job title - whether they earned it or not. No performance evaluations required to get a raise, not even a meeting to discuss. Just give them the new title and the raise in pay - and nothing - nothing - about hiring an American worker to do that job. No one will ever convince me that there aren't Americans out there who can do these jobs, want these jobs and they are not being given the consideration for whatever reason.

Now I am all for immigration and a path to citizenship - I've know a number of wonderful, caring and hard working people who deserve this opportunity. And a comprehensive immigration bill is needed. And I'm not saying that H-1B process should stop - all I'm saying is that after being exposed to how it works, I'm skeptical at best as to why Rubio, et al would want to increase the cap for H-1B visas. I'm not entirely sure what these "offshore outsourcers" are; however I know that there must be something set up to better care for our workers and our college students here at home - first.

I have a friend that's a manager at a company I won't mention but starts with the letter Q and
ends with Comm. (They have a stadium name in San Diego).

He says that to be able to get an H-1B visa worker, they have to advertise it to the american
public first. But they advertise in some unknown publication where you'd never look for a
high tech job, like Big Bear Times or some quiet little country town with a circulation of 100.

In the advertisement it is mentioned that the pay would be the prevailing wage, but once
the advertisement isn't responded to, the H-1B gets paid 1/3 to 1/2 the prevailing wage.

He justifies it, because "Everyone else is doing it too!"

I say tie the H-1B to the unemployment rate.
The Unemployment rate goes down, the H-1B visa cap could be raised.
The Unemployment rate goes up, the H-1B visa cap should be lowered.

This is just another scam for tech companies to lower their costs, by
lowering high tech wages. You'll never convince me otherwise.

I find it depressing to see these guys/gals with advanced engineering degrees making $15/hr and basically stuck in a company like an indentured servant because of the whole thing. After talking to many of them, I get that it's often times better for most people to live like that in the US (or wherever) than to stay in India where they have to compete with a billion people, but still. I also don't get why some people blame the workers themselves for this. Most of us would do the exact same thing if the roles were switched. It's the companies (like you said) who are to blame for this.

If the company is going to collapse without that particular worker's vital and unique skills (which they swear to, to get an H-1B), they shouldn't have any problem paying the fee, and, oh yes, paying that worker at or above prevailing wages to keep some other company from hiring her/him away.

Let the companies say, "this is what we expect to need" (or just look at recent H1B hires), and then find people who want to learn the job on the government's dime (funded via a fee on the companies using the program); the stipulation is that they accept relatively low wages for the skill for say, the first couple years, so that it is worth it to the company to participate. Companies get the skills they need, Americans get employed - with excellent job security and salary after the "payback" period, and if it's done right the financial aspects to the company balance out (at least as compared to if an American worker was already available at the prevailing wage).

That really doesn't seem like such a difficult program to set up, to me.

'we were going to screw you hard, but we'll settle for screwing you a little less'