H-1Bs behind women's decline in IT
H-1Bs behind women's decline in IT
Date: Sunday, July 03, 2005 6:05 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
by Rob Sanchez
July 03, 2005 No. 1281
There are lots of good reasons to stimulate women so that they realize their full potential, but this isn't one of them!
http://www.swe.org/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&ssDocName=swe_mission&ssSourceNodeId=6
SWE Mission (Adopted in 1986)
Stimulate women to achieve full potential in careers as
engineers and leaders, expand the image of the engineering
profession as a positive force in improving the quality of
life, demonstrate the value of diversity.
I don't know if organizations like the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) are just downright stupid or whether they are fronts for the shortage shouters in the ITAA and CompeteAmerica. One thing for sure, the shouters can do anything they want to try to stimulate women to be engineers but it's all for naught if the job market for continues to deteriorate. The sad reality for those in the engineering professions is that companies are dumping women engineers faster than universities can graduate them, and one of the main reasons this is happening is because companies are replacing women and other minorities with H-1Bs who are mostly young Asian men.
SWE isn't the only one that ignores the role H-1B plays in the number of women that hold engineering jobs, and the declining number of them enrolling in IT and engineering studies. IEEE constantly hypes the need to get more women into engineering, and articles about the supposed shortage of women engineers appear in newspapers and magazines on a regular basis. They all make the correct observation that the number of women in engineering is shrinking but they are totally clueless about the reasons why.
I agree with SWE and the shortage shouters that fewer women are entering engineering but I disagree about why. Here are two important facts that these morons completely ignore:
1 - Practicing women engineers are being replaced by the cheap young blood of H-1Bs who are mostly young MALE engineers.
2 - Most young women who are considering studying engineering have probably never heard of H-1B but they are savvy enough to know that the job market when they graduate is bleak. Women are not going to be enticed into engineering until job killers such as outsourcing and H-1B/L-1 visas are eliminated. Women are going to go where the jobs are and they see that the hard work to get an engineering degree doesn't offer enough payback.
Mainstream media publications have for the most part been silent when it comes to discriminatory aspects of H-1B, but finally Ed Frauenheim blew the lid on the whole mess. In one of the bluntest articles about H-1B that I have seen in a major publication he makes the connection between H-1B and the declining number of women in high-tech. Frauenheim's article stops short of explaining how H-1B enables employers to discriminate based on age and race. To read more about H-1B and ageism go to Norm Matloff's "Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage" at:
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html
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http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5764872.html
Coder group: H-1Bs behind women's decline in IT
By Ed Frauenheim, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: June 27, 2005
By Ed Frauenheim
Want to know why women's share of tech jobs is shrinking? Look at the temporary guest workers entering the country, most of whom are male.
That's the case being made by a group that advocates on behalf of U.S. software programmers and opposes H-1B visas. The Programmers Guild plans to release a report this week that re-examines data from a workforce diversity study published last week by the Information Technology Association of America industry group. Among the guild's arguments: the use of H-1B visas contributes to low shares of information technology jobs held by women and some racial minorities.
"Often employers force their U.S. workers to train their H-1B replacements, under threat of termination for cause and loss of benefits--driving women and underrepresented minorities out of the profession," the report states.
A number of reports, including the recent ITAA study, have documented a decline in women's share of tech jobs. The ITAA found that the percentage of women in the IT workforce dropped from 41 percent in 1996 to 32.4 percent in 2004. That report also discovered that employers hired men at a higher rate than women between 2003 and 2004. The number of unemployed skilled male IT workers dropped 34.4 percent from 189,000 to 124,000, while the number of unemployed skilled female IT workers dropped only 5.2 percent, from 97,000 to 92,000.
According to the ITAA, the declining representation of women is due largely to the fact that one out of every three women in the IT workforce falls into administrative job categories that have experienced significant overall declines in recent years.
The Programmers Guild, though, said a factor in the underrepresentation of women in the IT workforce is that a disproportionate number of H-1B workers are male. The guild cited federal data from 2002, showing that women made up 24 percent of temporary workers and trainees admitted to the country.
H-1Bs, which allow skilled workers to be employed in the United States for up to six years, account for one kind of temporary worker visa. Other such visas are for agricultural workers and nurses.
John Miano, founder of the Programmers Guild professional group, has estimated that more than 180,000 new H-1B workers in the computer field came to the United States between 2001 and 2003, while computer-related jobs in the nation increased by just 27,380.
Bob Cohen, senior vice president at the ITAA, dismissed the guild claim that the influx of predominantly male H-1B workers could explain the drop in women's percentage of the IT workforce. The "assertion is simply that: an assertion," Cohen said in an e-mail. "...the percentage of women in (nonadministrative) IT categories between 1996 and 2004 is roughly the same. We do not think the H-1B program impacts these figures."
H-1B visas have long been a point of debate in the tech industry. Thirty-nine percent of H-1B visa petitions approved in 2003 were for workers in computer-related occupations, with nearly 37 percent of all approvals that year for workers born in India. The program's annual cap of 65,000 visas was expanded last year, with 20,000 additional permits reserved for foreigners with advanced degrees from a U.S. institution.
Industry leaders have defended the visas as a means to fill shortages and give U.S. companies access to international talent as they compete globally. Visa backers, which include the ITAA, also say they serve as a brake on offshoring.
Critics have said the H-1B program undermines U.S. wages, is ripe for abuse and fuels the shift of skilled work overseas.
The guild suggested that the ITAA's own report indicates the visas are undermining America's tech leadership.
"(A)necdotally, the (U.S.) IT industry is experiencing a 'brain drain' among certain foreign-born IT workers who have been working in the U.S. IT work force for years and are now returning to their native countries like India, Pakistan and China to lead major technology companies," the ITAA's report said.
"The ITAA report bolsters the guild's concern that the H-1B visa program is being used by our economic adversaries as a means of gaining tech skills in the U.S. and then returning to their home countries like India and China to lead major technology companies," the guild said.
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http://www.prweb.com/printer.php?prid=256037
ITAA Study Reveals High Unemployment and Minority Overrepresentation in IT Fields
While bemoaning high unemployment, especially among females, and underrepresentation of native-born workers of all races within the IT job market in their recent study, ITAA continues to advocate for the H-1B program, which is a root cause of these problems.
Sacramento, CA (PRWEB) June 29, 2005 -- A study released by the ITAA on June 21, 2005 reveals minority overrepresention in the IT field and an excessively high rate of IT unemployment, especially among females.
The study titled "Untapped Talent: Diversity, Competition, and Americas High Tech Future" reports that, while minorities make up only 17.2% of the U.S. workforce, 33% of all undergraduate degrees in computer science, engineering, and related technologies were conferred on minorities. Minorities comprise 22.3% of U.S. IT workers - 30% higher than for all U.S. occupations.
The study reveals a grim job market for U.S. IT workers. The total number of IT jobs in the U.S. has diminished 8% - from 4,882,000 in 2000 down to 4,469,000 in 2004. Over 100,000 new graduates entered the IT workforce each year during that period, and a few hundred thousand more entered on nonimmigrant visas, such as H-1B and L-1.
Women comprise 32.4% of the IT workforce, or 1,448,000 workers. Of these skilled female IT workers, 92,000, or 6.4%, are unemployed. Combined with the 124,000 unemployed skilled male IT workers, U.S. employers are failing to utilize nearly 250,000 skilled U.S. IT workers. Rather than propose solutions to the high unemployment current workers, ITAA calls for substantial increases in the number of women and minorities entering the profession.
Call for New Visa to Bring Employers Rather Than Workers
"U.S. employers are simply not creating enough jobs for skilled IT workers, causing upwards of 15% of IT professional to be displaced from the profession in the past four years," states Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild. "Therefore our organization urges Congress to create a visa category to attract the best and brightest foreign employers to the U.S. - on the condition that they exclusively hire unemployed U.S. workers for their IT slots."
This shortage of qualified employers is dissuading new college graduates. The ITAA study reports that "the popularity of computer science as a major among incoming freshmen dropped 59% from 2000 to 2004."
One factor in the under-representation of women in the IT workforce is that a disproportionate number of H-1B workers are male. According to USCIS data for 2002, women comprised only 24% of temporary work visa admissions and only 15% of intercompany transfer admissions.
ITAA Supports a Visa Program That Undermines the Careers of Women and Minorities
The Programmers Guild notes the hypocrisy of ITAAs report: In spite of 250,000 unemployed skilled U.S. workers and a consistent decline in the total number of U.S. IT jobs over the past four years, ITAA continues to advocate for flooding in 65,000 foreign workers per year under the H-1B program, which allows employers to hire foreign workers with no requirement to hire qualified Americans when available. Hundreds of foreign body shops legally hire exclusively foreigners of their own nationality under this visa, at salaries in the $40,000 range.
Often employers force U.S. workers to train their H-1B replacements, under threat of termination for cause and loss of benefits - driving women and underrepresented minorities out of the profession. The ITAA report bolsters the Guilds concern that the H-1B visa program is being used by our economic adversaries as a means of gaining tech skills in the U.S., and then returning to their home countries like India and China to lead major technology companies.
While ITAA calls upon employers to embrace diversity, the Programmers Guild calls upon U.S. employers to utilize all skilled U.S. IT workers, regardless of race or gender, and to stop abusing the H-1B visa as a means of flooding the job market, driving down wages, and driving U.S. technology leadership out of the country.
About Us
The Programmers Guild advocates for the interests of U.S. computer programmers and other tech workers. The Guild is seeking sponsors for a bill that would amend the H-1B legislation to require that employers first attempt to recruit from the 250,000 unemployed skilled tech workers in the U.S. before DOL would approve the positions for H-1B workers. See www.programmersguild.org for more information.
References
- ITAA June 22, 2005 Press Release - Minorities - Fully Study Available Here http://www.itaa.org/eweb/Dynamicpage.aspx?webcode=PRTemplate&wps_key=0bf6f8eb-20ab-4906-957d-2ffa85ea205b
- ITAA Oct 4, 2004 Press Release - H-1B http://www.itaa.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?WebCode=PRTemplate&wps_key=123341A1-1B54-4C53-956F-7D7FC6DE7F1E
- USCIS Nonimmigrant Visa Stats for 2002. See columns J (H visa) and Q (L visa) http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/2002/Table32.xls- USCIS H-1B By Country and Occupation for 2002 http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/aboutus/statistics/TEMP02yrbk/TEMPExcel/Table33.xls
- USCIS Nonimmigrant Visa Stats for 2004 (used 2002 since didnt find separate "occupation" breakdown in 2004)
http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/YrBk04TA.htm
Table 30: See columns J (H visa) and Q (L visa) for gender breakdown
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Contact Information
Kim Berry
PROGRAMMERS GUILD
http://www.programmersguild.org
916 213-0492
www.ZaZona.com
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