As reported by InformationWeek, Yoh has prepared a press release that again proclaims that tech workers are being paid "near record wages."First Yoh unethically downplays that these wages are only contract wages, which could be as short as one day. They bear no relation to the wages paid to full-time employees, which are substantially lower. Yoh should make that more clear in the future.
Yoh fails to disclose that their "all-time high" wage determination does not factor in inflation. They use a base of 100 in January 2001, reaching 113.60 in Week 36 of 2007, or a 13.6% increase in wages over 6.5 years.
But according to this BLS calculator, inflation during the same period would have raised 100 to 117.72.
Thus when adjusted for inflation, the Yoh study actually finds that IT contract wages have continued to erode during this decade.
Yoh's study is further evidence that H-1b are underpaid. While Yoh cited $50 and $80 per hour as only "average wages," The average H-1b programmer -- who presumably is being brought in because they have the "hot" skills -- is paid about $52,000, according to a 2005 study.
Virtually NO H-1b LCA is for $50 per hour, and I've never seen an LCA for a software developer approach the "average" wage of $80 per hour.
Yoh's website fails to disclose salary ranges for most of their positions. Yoh's LCA filing for H-1b are here - but most are not software development occupations.
We had addressed the bias in Yoh's studies last April - nothing has changed.
9 comments:
I'm a contractor, at least I USED TO BE until the market was flooded with cheap 3rd world labor, and I cannot get even $50.00 per hour, much less get needed per diem when I work outside my home state.
Not one recruiter I've talked to will pay me even $50.00 all inclusive, which is rate plus per diem. They want to pay $40.00 per hour as a direct result of our labor market being flooded with cheap labor and the LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND being circumvented.
Rates are so low I'd be better off working for $11.00 at Home Depot with benefits.
So WHY did I get a degree?
I WILL NOT pay for my children to study any high tech field in college as it's a bad investment. No jobs will be available when they graduate.
Another consideration is the drop in the value of the Dollar.
These idiots thought it would be good idea to turn high-tech services into into a global commodity.
Protectionist policies, like buying up all the foreign talent (starving the competition) and benching the domestic talent is going to be very expensive considering the 50cent dollar.
Annual Peak(nominal)
Crude oil 2001 = $23.00
Crude oil 2007 = $58.05
(Crude oil today = $91.31)
U.S. Dollar Exchange rate
2001-01-02 January 02, Tuesday 1.05652 EUR
2007-10-04 October 04, Thursday 0.707814 EUR
If your house was worth $200,000.00 in 2001 and it's valued at $400,000.00 today, the only thing that has really gone up is the property taxes on your domicile.
Excessive immigration destroyed the housing market.
BTW: The weak Dollar should make it twice as expensive to move offshore as compared to 2001.
Accuracy said...
""I WILL NOT pay for my children to study any high tech field in college as it's a bad investment. No jobs will be available when they graduate.""
Yes i think that's a good idea..
Accuracy said...
""I WILL NOT pay for my children to study any high tech field in college as it's a bad investment""
Weaver said...
""Excessive immigration destroyed the housing market. ""
Are you the kid who didn't go to college...
Weaver said...
""BTW: The weak Dollar should make it twice as expensive to move offshore as compared to 2001.""
You say this based on how the dollar changed with Euro.
But where are the outsourced jobs going ??? Is it to Europe orrrr is it India and China??
Try comparing those currencies to the dollar.
According to surveys, my job should pay between $80k and $93k a year (salaried). However, I'm actually making just over $56k. I'm seriously undervalued as it is.
So those H1-B visas, if they are making $52k are near corporate pay rates for salaried employees for Software Engineer 1 positions. That said, those pay rates are seriously below industry average for the same job.
On a related note:
"You say this based on how the dollar changed with Euro."
"But where are the outsourced jobs going ??? Is it to Europe orrrr is it India and China??"
They may be going to China and India, but the companies in China and India are demanding rates equitable to the Euro, thus higher since the US Dollar has dropped in value against the Euro. So the parent is right.
For anonymous,
Let's see if it is more expensive to hire foreign talent and offshore jobs now than in 2001.
The Chinese Yuan is pegged, relative to the USD, so I'll use the Euro as the control.
http://www.exchangerate.com/past_rates_entry.html
1/2/2001 to 10/30/2007
Change Indian Rupee to USD 18.80%
Change Indian Rupee to EURO -22.16%
USD to Rupee (as compared to Euro)-40.96%
Change Chinese Yuan to USD 2.12%
Change Chinese Yuan to EURO -33.08%
USD to Yuan (as compared to Euro)35.21%
DATA:
1/2/2001
1 Indian Rupee = U.S. $0.021418
1 Indian Rupee = E.U. $0.022662
1 Chinese Yuan = U.S. $0.120814
1 Chinese Yuan = E.U. $0.127831
10/30/2007
1 Indian Rupee = U.S. $0.025444
1 Indian Rupee = E.U. $0.017640
1 Chinese Yuan = U.S. $0.123381
1 Chinese Yuan = E.U. $0.085539
As you can see the Indian Rupee And Chinese Yuan is raising against the USD and falling against the EURO.
If you are the guestworker and are expected to send Rupees home to your family, in which currency would you prefer to be paid? The USD or the Euro?
Even without a salary increase, an offshore worker in India is now almost 41% more expensive than in 2001, a Chinese offshore worker about 35% more expensive.
Additionally, my estimate of non-citizen computer-related workers was 52% of the labor force in 2005. There is a 1 in 2 chance that any job offshored already belongs to a non-citizen.
If anonymous is a guestworker I'd suggest moving home, if anonymous is an immigration (labor- arbitrage) attorney, I'd suggest saving the last bullet for himself.
Oops,
Deleted a character when posting...
Prior post should read:
Change Chinese Yuan to USD 2.12%
Change Chinese Yuan to EURO -33.08%
USD to Yuan (as compared to Euro) -35.21%
I used to work at Yoh, and I can verify that this data is useless. They pull the data from the contract workers at Yoh, which is not a geographic representation of the country, nor of skill sets. They can't accurately track the skill sets of the employees that work for them and rely on the recruiters to code the skills properly. I am surprised that this "index" continues to get press coverage.
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