After the tech bubble circa 2000 or so, H1-B visas weren't as important to firms anymore. The market was flooded with applicants. Also, many who came on the visas had immigrated. Visas for workers won't be much of an issue in the future, as tech firms have perfected the art of offshoring.

 

It's pretty much a zero way street. What fraction of workers would leave their job at lunchtime for a new one that paid 10% more without any notice at all?

Since we are talking about engineering and technical workers, I'd say that percentage would be pretty low. In my 20 years in the industry, I've never seen a single professional worker leave with no notice at all. Typically when they do leave, it's not wages alone that leave. There are a slurrly of reasons, to be closer to family, to advance their careers when they feel trapped, to start their own companies ( often as their employer as their first client ) Companies who treat their employees well, a diminishing few nowadays, can retain quality employees.

 

I will agree that it will be much lower for engineers and tech. I was making a more general point because the point that there is no loyalty on the part of companies is usually made as a general point.

But in the professional realm it is quite common to see people bounce from job to job as a means of boosting their income. I've even seen "career advice" websites tell people that they should stay with an employer just long enough to get fully trained (but at least three years) because they will be able to command hire salaries from a new employer than from their present employer specifically because the new employer doesn't have to pay for the time and expense of training while the old employer may take several more years to recoup those costs.

 

Of course they say that. They make their money by convincing people to switch jobs.

 

It has been my experience that changing employers is the only way to get a significant raise in pay. I was working back when wages for techs were about $3 per hour and getting annual reviews that offered me 5 or 10 cents an hour increase. Four job changes and I was making $5 an hour. Two more and I was making $13 an hour. Ten cents a year would have taken...96 years to get to $13/hour.

 

Are you sure you mean H1B1 and not just H1B? There are only a few hundred H1B1 visas issued each year and all go to Chilean and Singaporean workers.

I get mixed up in the terms. Maybe H1B. It does not really matter, they are not citizens and they are doing a job that my former co-workers could be doing. And they may be taking my job soon. I just want them to leave.

But I can imagine how people felt when my granddad came to this country. He really had a rough time. I don't know the details but I remember he had a rough time. But he did what he could to fit in. He changed his name to a more Americanized name and refused to speak Hungarian. He said he was an American and would speak English even to my Grandma. He was a really smart guy too. He had a third grade education yet he taught himself to read, taught himself, math, science, history just about anything he could get his hands on.

Both of my parents were the first generation to be born here. And their parents were all Americans first and foremost.

 

I was working back when wages for techs were about $3 per hour....

When was that? Ought 6? Even when I graduated high school, techs were making $7 - $12/hr.

The most money I ever made was after working for the same company for 9 years, before they sold out to Cisco. I came in at 65 and was within a hair's breath of 6 figures when I was let go. But that's history.

 

Good guess, but the numbers are backwards, more like 6 ought. Actually, 7 ought.

 

Wow! I had no idea. I graduated in '78. Went to work in a TV shop for, heck I don't remember, but it was like 6-7 bucks/hour.

 

I've been luckier than most to have landed on my feet as many times as I have, and it has been a long damn time since I've been blindsided.

 

To be precise, It was 1970-1972 and I worked at Sears, in Florida, fixing TVs, 40 hours a week, for $135 a week, before taxes.

I bet you don't wonder why I started changing jobs to get better pay!

 

I bet you don't wonder why I started changing jobs to get better pay!

To be honest, I didn't give it much thought. But I don't consider it disloyal if an employee leave a job that only pays half the going wage. I consider the company a poor place to work.

Was your pay so low because you were an apprentice? Back then, companys would take on a young guy and train him for a career, and pay a very small wage. The training was the treasure.

 

I was so young (still a teenager) (and suffered from a bad case of "baby face") that they didn't believe I could fix TV's until I started diagnosing them at the parts counter, then sending them to the TV shop to replace the parts I told them to replace. So, I was hired as a parts clerk and worked my way up to underpaid grunt. When they paid a new hire $10 more a week than they paid me, I realized they were keeping me on subsistence pay because they could. I took the 3 years of experience and made my way into the rest of the world. Two weeks later, I was making $4 an hour.

Edit: that photo of me in the upper left corner was when I was 25 years old.

 

One of our product engineers in Cali was formally a service engineer for Sears. He could talk for days about how various problems in the IF amp section would show up on the display.

 

TV repair makes you nuts.

 

TV repair makes you nuts.

I second that....

 

I did TV repair during the summer between my freshman and sophmore year in HS. In home repairs (service calls). By my junior year, I was working at a local radio station doing preventative and corrective maintenance, as well as engineering the two nightly talk shows.

A young attorney named Joe Biden stopped by to be on one of the talk shows. It was 1972. The fall of 1972 I enlisted in the Coast Guard. After boot, I found my draft number was 362 or 363.

 

Apparently TV repair made you nuts faster than It does most people.

 

Well, I did dabble in it, maybe one or two repairs for friends per year for a decade after that. And did it for a spell after I retired in 1994 ... that and other consumer electronics. I did contract maintenance at a radio station as well, and ironically, the same frequency as the one I worked at in HS. The radio station was in Clayton NM. Also worked on GPS equipment used in the AG arena, mosly aircraft systems. Dabbled in computer repair as well. Unfortunately the demographics didn't support full time specialization, so I was gamefully underemployed alot.

 

I don't know if you remember, but not that many years ago, there was article after article about how many engineering jobs there was supposed to be about right now, and how there wouldn't be enough graduates to fill all those jobs. Also, how employable anyone with an engineering degree would be. What happened to all those jobs? Was that just hype and propaganda? Many thing that was a deliberate sham to try to flood the job market with graduates, a market that wouldn't materialize. After living in California in the 90's and seeing how firms there tried every scam to lower wages, I would have to agree with that assessment.

Their all overseas. A Local company Karbon arms made in the USA just got a big deal for 800 units. They then fired their assemblers, testers, and programmers, and kept production mng. Now their gonna have em all made in China. Thats exactly what happened to all those jobs. They were counting that all these small start ups that make a product were actually gonna have it made here.