Who here has direct experience in the job categories?
Who of those responding are directly in industries affected by this?
I am (to some degree) and the notion that there is a huge shortage of US engineers and scientists is absolutely not the case. Or more specifically, if there were a reasonable career path there would be plenty of supply to meet the demand. That’s exactly what happened in the tech boom—plenty of US students came on-line, and were quickly laid off.
The reality is that the job market for US born scientists and engineers is very difficult in most circumstances, especially if you want to consider your life after 35 or 40. Even in biotech, you have thousands of PhD’s scrambling for poorly paid and temporary postdoc positions (pretty clear what the market is saying about this); pharmaecutical companies are making cutbacks in research.
And the requirements in the private sector are extraordinarily narrow in terms of supposed requirements (well beyond realistic need and adaptability of these very smart people). They reject many many applications from people who really are capable—and then use this as an excuse to outsource and get more immigrants.
I know first hand that Qualcomm is sending out entire, successful departments overseas—they already have plenty of engineers in soon-to-be eliminated jobs here.
The reality is that Asian-born and to some level European people have a profound *advantage* in the science and engineering job market and careers. They have some opportunitites here, but if the company moves the R&D to India or China, many could get a job “back home”, and often one which is a promotion. Americans can’t. China is impossible for Americans due to language, and India is really difficult to get a work visa, and there aren’t anti-discrimination laws in your favor. {There is the other rarely spoken reality that successful Asian immigrants in the US who have risen to management positions are leading the way in outsourcing to their home countries as they have contacts and with cultural familiarity their own career can go quite higher, it is not necessity at all but frank initiative and desire.}
European companies usually favor other EU applicants and with the higher level of government involvment in industry and available jobs the requirements are often legal.
I have a UC PhD in a hard science (Ivy undergrad), a good record. At age 38, I’ve been involuntarily unemployed for 6 months, and I haven’t even gotten back one single phone call regarding any employment application. All are straight up “no”.
