Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage
I'm shocked to find that there is no true IT labor shortage in the US and that companies are just using H-1B visas for their own nefarious purposes. I would have never saw that coming.
Due to an extensive public relations campaign orchestrated by an
industry trade organization, the Information Technology Association
of America (ITAA), a rash of newspaper articles have been appearing
since early 1997, claiming desperate labor shortages in the
information-technology field. Frantic employers complain that they
cannot fill many open positions for computer programmers. Yet readers of the articles proclaiming a shortage would be perplexed if
they also knew that Microsoft only hires 2% of its applicants for
software positions, and that this rate is typical in the industry.
Software employers, large or small, across the nation, concede that they
receive huge numbers of resumes but reject most of them without even
an interview. One does not have to be a "techie'' to see the
contradiction here. A 2% hiring rate might be unremarkable in other
fields, but not in one in which there is supposed to be a "desperate''
labor shortage. If employers were that desperate, they would certainly
not be hiring just a minuscule fraction of their job applicants.
