Bottom line: we can't just dismiss Bill as a liar. There is something in what he (and others) are saying. A rigorous examination of their claims may be worthwhile.
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Agreed.
A good way to start is by tracking precisely where imported talent is actually placed -- what sort of job assignments are they, on average, given. This real world data can be compared with lofty statements from CEOs to determine how much of what they say is true.
I'll admit to being skeptical to the point of almost completely dismissing these urgent words from corporations about needing *exceptional talent*.
Not merely because of ideological reasons (i.e. an opposition to capitalism in general and its corporate dominated form in particular) but because of what I've witnessed.
I've worked as an IT consultant for nearly a decade. In that time, I've been on assignments at some of the largest US firms in finance, pharmaceuticals, engineering, energy and so on (in fact, just signed a contract Friday with a huge auto manufacturer). Each of these companies does truly have a genuine need for very well trained and intelligent people in their research, development and production lines of business.
So, many of the colleagues/friends I've made who came from outside the US (most from India, some from China, S. Korea, Africa, etc) are indeed *exceptionally talented* people: PhD holders performing high level work in their fields.
But they form a very small minority of the total number of people these companies brought in because, they claimed, they needed a flood of talent. Most of even the most highly trained found themselves given grueling tasks like 14 hour a day programming maintenance jobs (for which skill, but not of the *exceptional* kind was required) and other jobs that did not really use their talents.
...
Now, we have the owners/senior managers of Microsoft, Intel and a host of other firms claiming they need an extremely large number of new hires with remarkable abilities imported from abroad because there aren't enough people to be found domestically to fill vacant, high level positions.
My response to this, based on my experience at companies whose owners have made similar claims, is that the number of people needed for the *exceptional* job spots is actually rather small. The rest, although quite talented, will be pressed into low paid work under conditions that make it difficult to have a normal, human life.
So the lie, as I see things, is to be found in the assertion that many, many thousands (indeeds, tens of thousands) of people are needed to fill advanced positions.
.d.