I'm an American citizen, I've been an IT worker for over 26 years. As recently as 1 month ago I was getting hammered by recruiters on a daily basis, receiving job opportunity calls at a rate of 2-3 a day, and I wasn't even looking. But that has pretty much abruptly tapered off to virtually nothing at this point.
While the economy overall has been tanking, there were a few industries which had appeared to be spared that fate. Healthcare, IT, maybe some green industries. Well, it looks like one of the last remaining bastions of economic health in this country, one of our flagship industries has finally fallen off a cliff.
Last month I posted a diary highlighting the fact that companies are laying off full time IT staff and refilling the same positions with contractors. A few commenters had noted that this has been going on for some time particularly in the big IT companies such as Microsoft and Intel. A fact that I had been well aware of for many years, but that practice has until recently been much less common outside the high tech industries. You see, while there are many high tech companies that employ a lot of IT staff, the vast majority of IT jobs are NOT in the high tech industries.
Most of us work in much more mundane industries; accounting firms, insurance, travel companies, healthcare, education, call centers, food services, entertainment, building and construction, pretty much any company with more than a few dozen employees has an IT department of some kind. So for the majority of us who work in IT but outside the high tech industries, this particular practice is a newer phenomenon.
What is not new is the use of H1B workers, and the use of offshore resources to do the work of stateside IT departments. For the past several months I have been working in such a department. The company I have been working for currently has a development team in India as well as internal staff and contractors.
Well last week I was told that the department had run out of budget and had to cut staff. I was given a pink slip, while our H1B contractor was retained as well as the entire offshore team. Only the American worker was laid off. On my last day, the department manager gave a speech in which she sung my praises. She thanked me for my contribution and remarked that my skills were "awesome", she made a point, in fact at least three times, that she would hire me back as soon as she had budget. Well, thanks but I'm not holding my breath. I have an unemployed spouse and a 6 year old child to support. Meanwhile the relatively much less experienced H1B worker from India with the same skillset got to keep his job.
That's particularly galling because I see H1Bs pretty much as carpet baggers. They come here, mostly from India, work for next to nothing, send most of what they do make back home and displace citizens like myself from their jobs. I've befriended more than a few and I do find most to be fine decent people who are only doing what they need to do to get ahead.
But their impact to this economy is relatively minimal, many if not most never buy cars, nor furniture, and rarely if ever real estate. They displace people like me, who earn more and consequently pay more in taxes. We invest in this economy, we purchase clothes, and cars, and houses. And when we are displaced by someone who spends virtually nothing in this economy, we are unable to pay our mortgages or for our cars. We stop shopping. It's a huge impact to the economy.
Our homes get foreclosed upon, thus making the current real estate crunch even worse. We end up having to take public assistance, thus draining an already stressed system even further.
At times like these, we have to make a choice between choosing between the interests of our own economy, and the interests of temp workers from foreign countries.
For my own part, I've been cruising the job boards like mad, I've applied to every single IT job for which I'm qualified. So far, I've sent out at least 30 resumes in the past two weeks and haven't had a single call on any of them.
The recruiter calls have all stopped, and I have not seen a single new job in my skillset area posted on any job board in weeks (usually I see several each day). This is a big change. It's not unexpected to see this on the coasts, or the south, or the rustbelt. But here in the Rocky mountain region the media has been leading us to believe that we haven't been as hit by the current recession.
Today, after paying into it for more than 30 years, I've applied for public assistance for the first time. It's humiliating, and it's injurious to the economy, and it won't even make a dent in my mortgage. As of this moment, I have no health insurance, no income, and no realistic job prospects.
If there is anyone out there who could use a good SQL programmer, I'm available. I've got over 20 years of IT experience overall, including more than 13 in SQL Server. I don't complain too much and I don't need top dollar. Just a chance to ply my trade. I'd love to stay here in Denver and not lose my house, but I'm willing to relocate to my old stomping grounds of Washington DC if necessary. I can be contacted through this site or directly at MutantMozart at gmail dot com.
I know it's a shot in the dark, but like so many others across the country, I'm running low on options. I figure my friends here on DKos know me pretty well, so I thought I'd give this a shot. I know this is not a job board and that some may find this inappropriate, but I've seen a few much higher profile bloggers than myself here do the same thing, some haven't even been pink slipped yet. It's just that, well, right now, maybe it's the only option I've got left.
Good night and god bless!
Update: Wow rec list,wasn't expecting that. Thank you Kossacks. And thank you for all those who have emailed leads, I really appreciate that and I really love this community!
I'm glad that at least the H1B thing is going to get some attention now. Let me say for the record, I really don't have a problem with the H1B system overall and certainly not with workers from India. What does concern me, and should concern all of us, is that this system is designed to fill vacancies when local talent can not be found. But during times of extreme economic downturn, such as the present, the system is an anachronism that is now doing damage rather than good.