FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Bill Gates Lies to Congress about Microsoft’s H-1B Wages
Contact: Mr. Kim Berry – President of www.programmersguild.org
SACRAMENTO March 19, 2006 – Bill Gates lied to the U.S. Congress last week. He misrepresented that Microsoft’s H-1b jobs for new graduates with no experience “start at about $100,000 per year.” In fact in FY 2006 only 12.4% of Microsoft’s LCAs for H-1bs paid $100k or more, and these were for directors, managers, and legal counsel rather than for new graduates.
Bill is gambling that Congress will not bother to take 5 minutes and check the facts. It’s probably a safe gamble.
The current H-1B cap is 85,000 per year – arguably exceeding the rate of job creation. What limit does Bill Gates call for? He wants to flood in an unlimited number of H-1B workers: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5687039.html (Could we at least compromise and cap it at one million per year?)
The Programmers Guild has documented the facts of how H-1b visas are actually used by industry on its website: H-1B visas are used in San Francisco predominately for underpaid, averaged skilled positions for which employers should have no trouble finding U.S. candidates:
www.programmersguild.org/sfh1b/
INCREASING THE LIMIT DOES NOT FIX THE PROBLEM
The way to fix the H-1B shortage is to stop issuing them to $17/hour accountants and average programmers – by requiring that employers first consider U.S. workers than then pay an actual comparable salary to the workers. Congressman Pascrell has drafted such a proposal: www.pascrell.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=11398
Somehow Microsoft able to thrive with the minimal H-1B workers during the mid-1990s.
MICROSOFT NOT RECRUITING U.S. GRADUATES
The dropdown list at this page contains the schools where Microsoft recruits: www.microsoft.com/college/yourschool.aspx
- Microsoft does not recruit at any of the California State University schools, including Cal Poly. There were not at CSU Sacramento a week ago: www.ecs.csus.edu/career/career-day/job-fair.php
- The Computer Science program at U.C. Davis, where Norm Matloff teaches, failed to make the cut. (Norm: I guess you are not turning out “Microsoft” material – like the schools in India are.)
- Many states, such as Nevada are completely overlooked.
MICROSOFT LAYING OFF U.S. WORKERS
According to the Seattle Post Intelligencer website, Microsoft has been laying off its U.S. workers. These are only the publicly disclosed events, and are independent from dismissals due to failure to perform:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/layoff.asp
Company # of Date
Layoffs
Microsoft 72 08/05/2005
Microsoft 62 01/21/2005
Microsoft 49 09/02/2004
Microsoft 76 08/23/2004
Microsoft 20 06/22/2004
Microsoft 40 02/15/2004
Microsoft 161 06/27/2003
Microsoft 61 04/22/2002
Microsoft 168 01/23/2002
LOW DEMAND FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE GRADUATES
Of the 108 employers at the engineering CSUS career fair, only 24 were seeking computer science graduates. In contrast, 79 were seeking civil engineers. What message does that send to freshmen who are choosing a major – that the majority of employers have no need for U.S. computer science graduates?
Finally, see the Gates/Abramoff connection here: www.anamericanscam.com/
###
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031701798.html
For Gates, A Visa ChargeSunday, March 19, 2006; Page B07 When the Senate comes back to work next week, it is scheduled to take up the issue of immigration. And that is what brought Bill Gates to Washington for a rare visit last week. … As Gates said, these are highly paid, highly qualified individuals. Salaries for these jobs at Microsoft start at about $100,000 a year… |
HERE ARE THE FACTS OF MICROSOFT’S USE OF H-1B:
The FY2006 data is zipped here, and contains both MS Access and Excel format.
- 2134 LCAs filed
- Median Salary= $84,407 (Skewed by some managers/directors/legal counsel in the $150k+ range)
- Only 12.4% paid salaries of $100k or greater.
www.programmersguild.org/docs/microsoft_h1b_2005.zip (only 147k)
FY 2005 is at beta.h1b.info:
H-1B applications filed by Microsoft Corporation during FY 2005*
* Applications submitted before October 2004 for jobs beginning in FY 2005.
Approved H-1B applications: 646 Total jobs: 648
| Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next > |
|