layoff or opportunity to offshore?

Microsoft made over $4billion in profit in 1 quarter and therefore needs to layoff 5,000 workers?

Just last year Bill Gates and other execs were imploring Congress to allow foreign workers into the country because American college students weren't pursuing engineering and computer science degrees.

No mention of how many jobs they have open, going unfilled, in the USA.

No mention of their hiring numbers in the USA and in their overseas offices.

No mention of why they can't hire 1 or 2 thousand top students out of the 50,000 computer science major who do graduate every year.

But you have to read through this long, slow account of their results to get to a critical statement that goes unquestioned:

Microsoft said Thursday that it would replace some of the fired workers with new hires, many of them to handle search, as it tries to grow new businesses.

Some? how many?

Where are the fired workers located? Where are their 'replacements' located?

And how many of those inadequate 50,000 engineers and computer science grads will Microsoft hire in the US now?

Do we have too many grads now while just months ago we had too few?

Are they unemployable here while hiring continues overseas?

Is it a reasonable long to medium term career to pursue for large numbers of people given the hiring and layoff patterns of the past 10 years?

Or is it a mark of intelligence to not pursue such careers?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/technology/companies/23soft.html