Reply #6: It's simple...

[OhioChick]

U.S. companies do not want to spend the money to have qualified seasoned programmers, developers and application architects fill the positions of large projects. Managers at these big companies get large bonuses for cutting costs on projects. CEOs and CFOs tout large Return-On-Investment (ROI) projections by figuring project staff salaries at 1/3-1/4, and 1-2 yrs. related experience, against an individual with 10+ years related experience. Filling a project with 20 H1-B developers, as opposed to 5-6 highly skilled professionals appears on the surface to offer a go to market date in a fraction of the time it would take under the other staffing model.

When companies are consistently burned by this model, and the final ROI does not yield the expectations... the reason often is that the staff did not have the necessary skill set required for the project, communication gaps, etc...

When the project reaches the time line over-run period of these projects, individuals such as yourself... out of work developers that are strapped for cash, and willing to work for less money just to pay the bills you've incurred by having to take a minimum wage job at the local Home-Depot for the past 2 years since after being laid off. Now you are put in a somewhat senior position on the project, usually end up working 60+ hour weeks picking up the slack of the less skilled workers. When the project completes (if it completes), bet your bottom dollar that everyone in a management position will blame the cost overruns on your wages; bet that the time line expectations will NOT be blamed on the managers not picking the right team for the project in the first place.

I've seen way too many projects based on this thought process fail over the years. Currently, you will hear companies state that there is a lack of IT talent in this country... that "they must offshore the work or import workers from other countries to meet the staffing needs of these projects." These are, in many sectors, the same companies that let go of all their IT staffers not too many years ago. Do they really think all the talent evaporated? Maybe the workers that they let just a few years ago would rather work at a lesser paying jobs(or different industry all together), not only out of self pride, but also that their current company offers more job stability?

Companies state that the colleges are turning out less and less individuals to fill the IT demands. This is true. 4 years ago when these young adults were starting their higher educations, companies were laying off IT workers in droves. Anyone that was in a computer science tract, quickly changed their major... Since corporate managers can never put them blame on their poor judgements, the current lobby push is to state that America is not producing any talented IT workers.

Our elected ass-hats in D.C. are buying (or are being bought) right into this line of thinking. Big business lines the pockets of this big government, plain and simple. If anyone should have their job duties outsourced or replaced by a H1-B visa replacement... It's the CEOs, CFOs, COOs, managers, as well as all of our elected officials. It really is about time for another tea party!

on edit: spelling correction.