For years, we have seen the India-based IT outsourcing firms take more and more jobs at our workplaces. Now we finally have some data to show just how much damage has been done.
The above graphic from the Institute for Sound Public Policy, the umbrella organization over US Techworkers, shows that there are almost as many foreign-born and non-citizen programmers in CT as there are American coders.
This data is sourced from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, an annual demographics survey program used by many public-sector, private-sector, and not-for-profit stakeholders to allocate funding, track shifting demographics, plan for emergencies, and learn about local communities
I have to say these numbers really surprised me When I started coding, there just a few people who were NON-American. I actually forget how they started working for our company. But I do remember when things changed…
Right after the DOT-COM bubble burst, I started seeing IT managers bringing in more and more workers from India. At one company I worked at, I saw an entire IT department of 350 Americans replaced with workers from an India-based IT oursourcing firm. Working there was really stressful. You never knew when HR was going to show up with a pink slip for you. When it finally happened, the results were a typical pattern of pain and loss. First the divorce came, then the forclosed home, followed by some sort of new substance abuse (alcohol or painkillers).
It’s not as if these people didn’t have the skills. In all actuality, these people were very good at their job and very loyal to the company. But, the simple fact was that our immigration laws provided the company with options. And despite years of dedicated service, upper management always chose the cheaper workers.
In nearly all of these waves of layoffs, the companies usually suffered. the quality of the IT systems declined and it almost always costed the company extra money in the end, hiring more people to fix errors brought on by the new people. But that didn’t matter. By that point, the Indian outsourcing firm had an exclusive contract, which included hiring/firing power of the entire IT department.
In any case, back to the numbers …
If you compare CT to the rest of the country, it appears they have done a better job at replacing us than in other states. Across the entire US, we are ranked #8 for having the lowest percentage of US-born software developers.
I was able to find some county-wide numbers as well and it looks like its particularly bad for Tolland and Fairfield Counties. They are ranked in the top 36 counties in the country for having the lowest percentage of US-born software developers.
This government data paints a stark picture. If all this could happen over a 25-year period, what’s going to happen over the next 25? Will there be any jobs left for our children?
Across the workforce as a whole, you can see the replacement phenomenon at work. Using govenment data, this ZeroHedge news story shows that all the new job creation since Covid has gone to foreign workers.
But even before Covid, we knew the numbers just weren’t looking good for American workers. Since the 1930s, the country only creates 1.5 million jobs per year on average – but we import up to 10 million Visa workers some years.
It’s time we start reversing this trend. The first thing you can do to empower yourself is to join a group. And the best one out there at fighting for the rights of IT professionals is US Techworkers.
The Indian IT oursourcing firms are spearheading yet another push in Congress to expand Visa programs. US Techworkers has been successful in the past at leading efforts to defeat these offensives in the past – and they need your support to continue fighting this fight.
Please consider making a donation to this group, joining their call-in campaigns or simply sign up for their newsletter. At the very least, you’ll be in the company with people who can help you.
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