To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter

Mon Aug 26 23:52:56 PDT 2013


Some items on the age issue for tech workers:

1.  The San Francisco Chronicle

"In Silicon Valley, Age Can Be a Curse,"

http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/In-Silicon-Valley-age-can-    
be-a-curse-4742365.php 

"Readers Offer Tales of Silicon Valley's Ageism,"

http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Readers-offer-tales-of-Silicon-Valley-s-ageism-4758726.php

2.  One of the reader comments on my Bloomberg op-ed that went up this
evening dovetails with what I've said repeatedly:

Siloo Kapadia 

"We also went to USA through the H1B program, got green cards and stayed
there for a total of 20 years. A year after getting the green cards,my
husband laid off.  We later came to realize that this was standard
practice at many IT companies. They only want you when you are young,
desperate for a visa, and are willing to work for 50-60 hours per week
for peanuts.  

Yes, he did find a job, but at 60% of the pay and far fewer benefits. We
saw the writing on the wall and left for Singapore.  We are so glad we
did.  

Indians today have the mistaken belief that living in USA is a heaven.
It is in fact, more like a hell.  I urge my fellow Indians to look
elsewhere for a job and life.  Don't make the mistake we did."

As I've said before, regardless of whether you are a native or an
immigrant, age 35 is age 35, and you begin to lose employability then.
Note too that I and others have pointed out that today's H-1B is
tomorrow's victim (victim of age discrimination, thus a victim of the
H-1B program, which fuels the age issue).

Norm

Archived at http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/AgeismAug2013.txt