ComputerWorld Magazine Forum July 18, 2000

Comments of Bruch Christensen posted by Brian Sullivan     http://198.112.59.4/cworld_forums/Forum21/HTML/000001.html

Here are some observations from Bruce Christensen
President - Just Info Tech Resource Group(JITR Group)

We are a small computer consulting company headquartered in Tulsa, OK.
Our primary focus is providing temporary contract IT personnel to Oklahoma
and Texas clients.
We have very little trouble finding qualified American IT candidates.
We have hundreds of these U.S. citizens in our database!

Our problem lies with our competition, mainly the huge firms like EDS, PWC,
Andersen Consulting, E&Y, Manpower, IBM, etc.,
who bring in the H1B's at a very low cost.
We may all be competitive with our billing rates, but they don't pay the
contractors any more than 20-40% of their billing rates (less than $40,000 /
year average to the H1B's, $55,000 to the "locals"),
whereas we pay 70% of the bill rate (averaging $70,000 / year).
We can attract U.S. citizens all day and night.
The other half of the problem is corporate America, who prefer dealing only
with these huge consulting firms.
They rarely give us small business owners a chance to provide the best
American talent they need.