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Oct 5 2009: parts moved to JobNut blog.

Sept 25 2009:

Many American universities are closing down their IT degree programs. Why ? The programs lack sufficient students to make them economically viable. Enrollment for IT degrees has declined about 50% since the year 2000.

Various reasons have been offered by 'IT industry experts' to explain the decline; their favorite explanations include the idea that American students are too lazy/stupid/greedy for a demanding career in IT. One might presume that universities will start offering degrees in something like Party Engineering or Rock and Roll Technology, more in keeping with what the 'experts' see as consistent with the American character. But there might be another explanation.

From a comment in a thread at zazona.con titled "Horror Stories".

My nephew who just graduated from High School had planned on going to school to be a computer programmer and recently decided not to because he heard (not from me by the way, he found this out his own) that all the IT jobs were being scooped up by foreigners. He is now planning on getting into law enforcement. ...

More on the same subject, I was telling my barber about my nephew and she said that her niece had exactly the same experience, wanted to go to school to work in IT and decided not to because of all the foreigners taking all the jobs.

By the way, the year was 2001, just about the time that IT enrollment began to drop so sharply.

In the ensuing 8 years, not much has changed and, in fact, employment prospects for the dwindling number of American IT graduates have gotten much worse. When will the government-sponsored destruction of our IT industry end ?

Light at the End of the H1B Tunnel, Or Not ?

The introduction of the Durbin-Grassley Bill in Congress may be an indication of growing interest in reviving the comatose American IT industry. In essence, the bill seeks limits the number visas granted to foreign IT companies to place workers in American corporations. [ Note: I don't think it's a very good bill, but that's for another article ].

Surprisingly, it looks as if some form of the bill might be able to clear both Houses of Congress despite the fierce opposition of American business and threats by Microsoft to move to India ( a happy thought ). Any thanks should go to the recession, I suppose.

Assuming that some form of H1B limitation bill passes Congress, the employment situation for new American IT graduates will still be very bad. In fact, even assuming that Congress passed legislation to eliminate the H1B program entirely, it would take six years to purge the existing H1B workers from the American labor market - 6 years is the duration of the "temporary" work visa. So, the employment prospects for American IT graduates in an H1B-free America would still be bleak for years to come, at least into the mid 2010s.

Too Little, Too Late ?

Assuming the success of current H1B-control efforts. legislative corrections are probably coming too late for several generations of unemployed IT graduates in this country ( God help the class of 2009 ). But, we can hope that class of 2012 or 2013 might start to see the return to something like a viable job market undistorted by the importation of hundreds of thousands of cheap IT workers.

On the other hand, if I were a student trying to decide whether or not to enroll in an IT program, I would wait to see what happens before making the jump - many a slip between cup and lip, especially when powerful interests with billions of dollars at stake are working assiduously to prevent your lip from meeting the cup, so to speak.

The US Government's Foreign Worker Policy - The More, the Merrier ?

What are the government's overall intentions for foreign IT worker programs ? Are the L-1 visa and its kin just an H1B visa by another name ? Are H1B visas being converted to Green Cards ? Perhaps most important, will the Federal Government make public the supposedly public statistics regarding the number of foreign IT workers in the U.S. ? Or will they resort to the same distortions and lawyer tricks we have seen so much of in the last 10 years ?

Currently, secrecy surrounds these programs and we do not know with any certainty the actual number of foreign IT workers in this country, within a range of plus or minus 100,000. The number is certainly over 350,000 but how much more we simply do not know. The true number could be well over 500,000. Why have these statistics been suppressed and when will an honest account of the scale of foreign worker programs be given to the American people ?

But the question abides, what is long-term government policy toward the importation of cheap foreign workers to replace Americans in their job ? The message we get from most of the Washington apparatchiks is that they are "all for it". Considering recent proposals to increase the number of H1B workers during our deepest economic recession in 50 years, I think that the attitute in Washington can ony be described as "never too much". Knowing our current crop of politicians, one must assume that "never too much" means never too much money in their campaign funds ( or worse ).

If US government 'officials' were to state that their policy in the future will be to limit the number of H1Bs, would anyone believe them ? I'm not sure I would. When a shark ( a politician, H1B agency, etc ) tastes blood ( money ), it wants more and it is ruthless and persistent enough to get it any way it can.

By organizing and mobilizing, the American people may eventually be able to regain control over our government in Washington and to limit the H1B program, but foreign worker programs have probably become a permanent feature of the American employment landscape no matter what we do. There is just too much money 'on the table' ( several hundred billion dollars in the last 8 years ) and our political system is too susceptible to the power of money to expect that periodic floods of government-sanctioned foreign workers will cease being a major challenge to the continued existence of a professional class in this country.

The Future - Through the Looking Glass Darkly

Large, destructive foreign worker programs will probably never go away entirely as a threat to the careers of American professionals, not just as a threat to IT professionals but to all American professionals.

The disinformation campaign surrounding the foreign IT worker program has been about as slippery and dishonest as anything I have witnessed in my not inconsiderable life span, so take a careful look at the statistics behind the statistics. Dig deep into whatever information is available before deciding on a career in IT. Without answers to the questions above, you are really just playing craps with your future.

Remember that the ultimate victim of "bad intelligence" will be you.