H-1B Visa Cap Met

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[Harimau]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

** This thread discusses the article: H-1B Visa Cap Met **
The numbers for H1-B visa caps during various years is NOT an indication of how many foreigners were allowed into the USA. If an H1-B employee wanted to change his job, his new employer would have to apply for a fresh H1-B visa for him... it is not a matter of endorsing the previous visa with the name of the new employer. At the time when the limit was 195,000 visas per year during the height of the dotcom boom, quite a few persons had multiple visas (some as many as three). This is also the reason why the US immigration authorities cannot provide an exact figure for the number of foreign-born persons who are in the US on the Hi-B program. The fact that this year's visa limit was reached in 10 days doesn't mean that 65,000 foreign-born programmers boarded planes in Bombay, Bangalore, Hyderabad or Chennai to arrive in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta in those 10 days. A very large number of these visas would have been issued to those who are in the US looking for a change in employers; to newly-minted (foreign born) graduates from US universities; to those have reached the limit of 6 years and are applying to renew their visas, etc. It is precisely these factors that have led to the boom in L-1 visas. As a former executive of an outsourcing company, I can tell you that because of these factors, it is almost impossible for a company such as ours to operate under the present circumstances. Since we were unable to obtain visas for reasonably junior programmers from India, we had to do everything in our powers to hold on to our existing H1-B employees in the US including payraises, overtime pay, bonuses, etc. So I would venture to say that we were not depressing wage levels in the US. A couple of final related points: when manufacturing jobs left the US in large numbers for China, Viet Nam, Indonesia, etc., there was no such hue and cry about it. How many of us are bothered by the fact that there are no products in the local Wal-Mart that are made in the US anymore? Why are we then bothered by the fact that the programs used by Wal-Mart to run their operations might be written and maintained by foreign-born persons? Secondly, under WTO member countries are required to open up all sectors of their economy to foreign investment. Thus you now have Prudential selling insurance in India and Rupert Murdoch controlling a TV channel. Why should programming services not fall into this category? If and when it does, the US will have to abolish all limits on foreign labor coming into the US, just as there are no restrictions within the European Economic Community to the free movement of professionals (including professionals licensed under National laws and regulations such as doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc.) within the EEC. Just imagine what would happen in the US when that happy day arrives! We would be able to break the back of the most powerful union, the American Medical Association.

[Guest.Visitor]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

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Harimau wrote: > As a former executive of an outsourcing company, I can tell you that > because of these factors, it is almost impossible for a company such > as ours to operate under the present circumstances. Since we were > unable to obtain visas for reasonably junior programmers from India, > we had to do everything in our powers to hold on to our existing H1-B > employees in the US including payraises, overtime pay, bonuses, etc. Are you saying that you knowingly broke the law concerning H1B's? If not, what were the special skills these "junior" programmers from India carried that you could not find in the US? > So I would venture to say that we were not depressing wage levels in > the US. But, if the H1B limit were expanded, then you would have depressed wage levels? Bill

[M.Savino]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

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"How many of us are bothered by the fact that there are no products in the local Wal-Mart that are made in the US anymore?" At least one.... Including myself. "...in India and Rupert Murdoch controlling a TV channel." And exporting nothing but the Best of American Culture, I'm sure.

[Harimau]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

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We were looking (separately) for persons with Oracle ERP and Oracle DBA skills. A person with three years of experience would have been available in India but I couldn't find any in the San Francisco Bay Area.... remember, this was the boom time and there was less than 3% unemployment in San Jose and that too among the unskilled labor. By the way, we were once audited by the INS who just barged into our offices unannounced and demanded all our personnel files. Having nothing to hide, we handed over everything they wanted and were given a clean bill of health after the audit. We were handing out overtime pay (tell me, isn't programming a "profession" according to Department of Labor and thus falls into the "Exempt" category, meaning programmers need not be paid for overtime work?) on the basis that if we were billing our customers more than 40 hours a week, the employee should get some benefit too out of that. The tables turned in mid-2002 when we had to let go a lot of people because of the drop-off in business. We did not impose any pay-cuts on those we retained.... we knew that that would require us to file a fresh H1-B petition... after all, the initial H1-B petition showed the salary we were paying the employee. So, the business downturn resulted in loss of jobs, loss of overtime (because the customer didn't want overtime work), the loss of bonus (because profits were down). During boomtime, H1-B workers do not depress wages. When there is an economic downturn, H1-B workers suffer along with US citizens. Believe me, life is not all wine and roses for the H1-B worker or their employers. I have observed it at close and several of my friends had to struggle to keep their jobs during the downturn. How would you like to be told that you have an indeterminate amount of time (which might be end of the business day on which you were told of your dismissal to 10 days to 30 days -- nobody knew the answers) to sell your belongings and get out of the country? There are no winners in that situation, except perhaps the US companies that actually hire and pay for the H1-B workers because they didn't have to the normal outplacement costs associated with firing staff.

[Harimau]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

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I hope you are not referring to Jerry Springer!

[David Abramowitz]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

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Thomas Stockwell wrote: Unfortunately, the enforcement of these reforms has been spotty. More like non-existant. Dave

[David Abramowitz]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

** This thread discusses the article: H-1B Visa Cap Met **
"It's becoming increasingly difficult for the best talent in the world to come to the U.S.," said John Palafoutas We must be second or third best then. Maybe he means the "cheapest" talent. Dave

[David Abramowitz]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

** This thread discusses the article: H-1B Visa Cap Met **
Large organizations like IBM and Microsoft are now using L-1 visas in preference to H-1B visas to lower the cost of employing highly trained individuals in the United States. Department of State statistics show that the use of L-1 visas has increased substantially since fiscal year 1998. If the L-1 visa holder is already an employee, why are so many L-1 visa holders being farmed out by their employers to other companies? A valid reform would be one that states that the L-1 Visa holder may not do work for anyone other than the holder's employer. The politicos I have been in touch on this one appear to agree. Dave

[David Abramowitz]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

** This thread discusses the article: H-1B Visa Cap Met **
What most studies, including a Government Accounting Office (GAO) study, indicate is not a shortage of IT workers but a shortage of the lower-paid, highly trained H-1B visa holders that industry execs want in order to minimize costs. . . . . .and that's the bottom line. Congress reads the GAO reports and most have an employee based contituency. This bodes well for the future. Dave

[Guest.Visitor]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

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"but I couldn't find any in the San Francisco" So you went all the way to India for cheap imports! ;-) Do you try Texas? how about Florida? ..... Got'a Love it!

[Guest.Visitor]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

** This thread discusses the article: H-1B Visa Cap Met **
Harimau wrote: > We were looking (separately) for persons with Oracle ERP and Oracle > DBA skills. A person with three years of experience would have been > available in India but I couldn't find any in the San Francisco Bay > Area.... remember, this was the boom time and there was less than 3% > unemployment in San Jose and that too among the unskilled labor. I see by Trapez' response I wasn't the only one struck by your tightly defined employee area search. > By the way, we were once audited by the INS who just barged into our > offices unannounced and demanded all our personnel files. Having > nothing to hide, we handed over everything they wanted and were given > a clean bill of health after the audit. Sounds like a typical government response to a tip. Guess what, they don't pre-announce when they think you are using illegal copies of software -- they enter the building with US Marshals and have everyone stop what they are doing and have them leave the building. > We were handing out overtime pay (tell me, isn't programming a > "profession" according to Department of Labor and thus falls into the > "Exempt" category, meaning programmers need not be paid for overtime > work?) on the basis that if we were billing our customers more than > 40 hours a week, the employee should get some benefit too out of > that. That is correct for US rules, but California rules are different. Prior to approximately 2002, the rules for professionals were driven by salary level, but CA then tightened the definition to be based upon the management role. > During boomtime, H1-B workers do not depress wages. Can you explain how this would work? > Believe me, life is not all wine and roses for the H1-B worker or > their employers. I have observed it at close and several of my > friends had to struggle to keep their jobs during the downturn. How > would you like to be told that you have an indeterminate amount of > time (which might be end of the business day on which you were told > of your dismissal to 10 days to 30 days -- nobody knew the answers) > to sell your belongings and get out of the country? Yet the H1B's are all taken within the first few months of the year. I don't think it's as bad as you make it to be. > There are no winners in that situation, except perhaps the US > companies that actually hire and pay for the H1-B workers because > they didn't have to the normal outplacement costs associated with > firing staff. Outplacement costs are not necessary even for citizens, with union shops possibly being the exception. As far as I know the only requirement placed upon large non-union businesses is the prior notification of a plant shutdown. Bill

[Harimau]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

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Yes, I did. We advertised nationally and interviewed a DBA out of Florida. He was making $75 K in 1999 and we offered him $120K to move to the Bay Area. He turned us down, saying he didn't want to move out of Florida. Probably he used our offer to get a counter from his employer. As to cheap imports from India, one of the persons I had to let go during the downturn was a British passport holder. Never make assumptions about people. It ruins your perfectly designed system!

[Harimau]

H-1B Visa Cap Met

** This thread discusses the article: H-1B Visa Cap Met **
I have provided info to Mr. Trapez about how our search wasn't constrained by geographic considerations. It would not surprise me in the least to find that a lot of the negative comments about the H1-B program comes from people with the least contact with such guest workers. In the Bay Area, it is not uncommon to find in the R&D and Product Design & Development groups of any company a majority of H1-B workers. Those people never faced any resentment from their co-workers because everybody understood that the contributions of the H1-B workers was vital to the success of the company. For every C or Java programmer, there was at least a couple of hardware/firmware design engineers on H1-B developing the next chip. Most of these are graduates of US universities who applied and got their jobs against or alongside US-born engineers. I have walked through hallways at Sun Microsystems seeing nothing but Vietnamese names, through another hallway seeing nothing but Chinese names, through yet another with nothing but Indian names. If these people did not add value, I don't think Sun would have kept them employed. I will admit that I am not familiar with California employment laws in detail but I don't think persons making $75,000 or more would be eligible for overtime even in California. I know for a fact that when I was making that kind of money as an employee, I was not paid overtime but then with the outsourcing company, I made such payments because the employee had 10 offers in his hand and I had to sweeten his pay somehow or other. That ought to explain why during full employment guest workers in skilled categories cannot depress local wages. The H1-B visas are snapped up primarily by fresh graduate from US universities of foreign origin, people renewing their visas after the 6 year period, etc., as I have explained before. It is really really hard nowadays to get an H1-B visa sitting in Bangalore. Outplacement costs include such things as increased Unemployment Insurance costs, need to recall laid-off workers before you hire anybody else, etc. H1-B workers don't get any of these and so the overall Cost-to-Company is reduced. Also, H1-B workers do not get placement assistance like US workers do. I do recognize that this is an emotional issue just like imports of Japanese steel and automobiles was an emotional issue in the 1970s. I am wondering why nobody bothers to burn down a Wal-Mart (not that I am advocating it!) but steel-workers and auto-workers did on occasion beat to death Oriental-looking people blaming them for their job loss. I hope people don't take out their frustrations on the first foreign-looking guy they see.

[Harimau]

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No, it simply means that the US moves up the technology curve by inventing new products. The US led the way in DRAM design and production. These memory chips are now made more cheaply by Japanese and Korean companies. The US moved away to ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits). Why? Because, by being close to their customers, they are able to gauge what the customer would need in the future and develop such products. That is not easy for the Japanese and Korean companies and they mostly churn out low-cost, high-volume memory chips. US companies do stupid things too. Compaq spent good money developing a hard-disk based MP3 player, decided there was no market for it and sold all the rights to a Korean company. Now you have the vast majority of the MP3 players (other than Apple's iPod) being made by non-US companies.