In a message dated 3/13/08 9:01:45 P.M. Central Daylight Time, News@JobDestruction.info writes:
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1835 -- 3/13/2008 >>>>>
Bill Gates gave his pitch for more H-1B visas in Washington DC yesterday.
Here are a few important links:
http://www.science.house.gov/publications/hearings_markups_details.aspx?News
ID=2117
"Competitiveness and Innovation on the Committee’s 50th Anniversary with
Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft."
This page is the starting point for the testimony at the House Committee on
Science and Technology page. From this page you can watch a streaming video
of the entire hearing and see a picture of a smiling Bill Gates.
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/Commdocs/hearings/2008/Full/12
mar/gates_testimony_12mar08.pdf
"Written Testimony of William H. Gates Chairman, Microsoft Corporation And
Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Before the Committee on Science
and Technology United States House of Representatives March 12, 2008."
This is a 22 page written testimony by Bill Gates.
A transcript of his Gates' oral testimony hasn't been released yet, and
they are not indicating when or if it will be published. The blog below has
a partial transcript of the questioning by U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who
was about the only one who wasn't licking the ground Gates walks on.
Rohrabacher came on about 49 minutes into the video. The Chairman Bart
Gordon (D-TN) gave Rohrabacher a stern warning that he only has 5 minutes.
Gordon obviously knew that Rohrabacher wasn't there to call Gates a hero or
a rock star like some of the others did.
Overall you will see that Gates is a slick salesman, and he had an adoring
audience which made the pitch very easy to make. Gates almost blew it by
breaking up in laughter when he tried to convince Rohrabacher that hiring
H-1Bs wasn't about reducing wages (55:00). Other than that, his performance
was almost flawless (although I will withhold judgment until I watch all
two hours).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/134123.asp
Transcript: Bill Gates, U.S. Rep. spar over H-1B visas
In Washington, D.C., today, Bill Gates testified before the U.S. House
Committee on Science and Technology, calling again for Congress to reform
the H-1B visa program that Microsoft and other companies use to bring
foreign workers to the U.S.
Here's an excerpt from the text of his prepared remarks (PDF, 20 pages).
Congress's failure to pass high-skilled immigration reform has exacerbated
an already grave situation. For example, the current base cap of 65,000
H-1B visas is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to the U.S. economy's
demand for skilled professionals. ...
As a result, many U.S. firms, including Microsoft, have been forced to
locate staff in countries that welcome skilled foreign workers to do work
that could otherwise have been done in the United States, if it were not
for our counterproductive immigration policies. Last year, for example,
Microsoft was unable to obtain H-1B visas for one-third of the highly
qualified foreign-born job candidates that we wanted to hire.
If we increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to U.S.
companies, employment of U.S. nationals would likely grow as well. For
instance, Microsoft has found that for every H-1B hire we make, we add on
average four additional employees to support them in various capacities.
Our experience is not unique. A recent study of technology companies in the
S&P 500 found that, for every H-1B visa requested, these leading U.S.
technology companies increased their overall employment by five workers.
The Microsoft chairman's assertions didn't go unchallenged. The
question-and-answer period included a lively exchange on the topic between
Gates and U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican.
A transcript, gleaned from the webcast (accessible here):
Rohrabacher: If we bring in more people from the outside, realizing that
we're bringing the most talented people from other countries, will it not
hurt those countries? And will it also not depress the wages in our own
country that people like yourself would have to pay your employees in order
to get quality people or in order to train people within our own society?
Gates: No, no. These top people are going to be hired. It's just a question
of what country they do their work in.
Rohrabacher: I'm really not talking about top people here. You know ...
there's a lot of other people in society rather than just the top people.
It's the B and C students that fight for our country and kept it free so
that people like yourself would have the opportunity that you've had. Those
people, whether or not they get displaced by the top people from another
country is not our goal. Our goal isn't to replace the job of the B
students with A students from India, because those B students deserve to
have good jobs and high-paying jobs.
Gates: That's right, and what I've said here is that when we bring in these
world-class engineers, we create jobs around them. ... The B and C students
are the ones who get those jobs around these top engineers. And if these
top engineers are forced to work, say, in India, we will hire the B and C
students from India to work around them.
Rohrabacher: But according to BusinessWeek, almost 150,000 computer
programmers have lost their job in this country since the year 2000. Now,
my reading of all of this is that there are plenty of people out there to
hire but people want to have the top quality people from India and China
and elsewhere, and they're willing to have these 150,000 American computer
programmers just go unemployed.
Gates: Actually, BusinessWeek doesn't do surveys. I think you're referring
to a quote in BusinessWeek from an Urban Institute study ...
Rohrabacher: That's what I said, according to BusinessWeek, yeah.
Gates: It's not according to BusinessWeek. There was a study that a group
at Urban Institute did that was deeply flawed in terms of how it defined
what an engineer is. When we say that these jobs are going begging, we're
in business every day. We're not kidding about it. These jobs are going
begging, and the result is that in a competitive economy ...
Rohrabacher: You'd have to raise wages.
Gates: No, wages are --
Rohrabacher: If a job's going begging, you raise wages, now in a --
Gates: No, it's not an issue of raising wages. These jobs are very, very,
very high-paying jobs. And we are hiring as many of these people as we can.
Rohrabacher: Well, let me give you one example --
At that point, committee chairman Bart Gordon interrupted to say that
Rohrabacher's time was up, and Rohrabacher suggested that he and Gates
continue the discussion at a reception during the evening.
"I'm sure he's excited to know you'll be there," Gordon said.
Posted by Todd Bishop at March 12, 2008 3:44 p.m.
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