Posted on 04/11/2009 9:08:14 PM PDT by zaphod3000
[Skilled labor] is a category whose significance has been growing since the 1920s, when politicians and business executives started recognizing the value of skilled immigrants. After World War II, companies began actively recruiting scientists, among them Nobel Prize winners, from around the world.
The emphasis on skilled labor was codified in the Hart-Celler Immigrant Act of 1965, which said that for 20 percent of immigration spots, candidates with certain skills would get preference to stay indefinitely, though that 20 percent also included the family members of those skilled immigrants.
(At the time, 74 percent of visas were given to people to be reunited with family members here, and 6 percent for political refugees from the Eastern Hemisphere.)
Reflecting the growing importance of technology — and responding to industry lobbying — in 1990 Congress set aside 65,000 temporary work visas, known as H-1B visas, for skilled workers. The visas, which are sponsored by companies on behalf of employees, permit three years of work, with an automatic three-year extension.
The limit was raised twice as the technology sector boomed, to 115,000 in 1999 and to 195,000 in 2001. But those temporary increases were not renewed for 2004, and the number of H-1B visas reverted to 65,000. (There are an additional 20,000 H1-B’s for people with graduate degrees from American universities.)
Since 2004, there has been a growing gap between the number of H-1B visas sought and those granted, through a lottery. In 2008, companies made 163,000 applications for the 65,000 slots. Google applied for 300 of them; 90 were denied.
Top ten countries with foreign born workers in US, all occupations (+/- 1-2%):
1.Mexico 5,286,400
2.Philippines 848,800
3.India 746,200
4.China 653,000
5.El Salvador 580,100
6.Vietnam 526,000
7.Germany 476,100
8.South Korea 408,400
9.Cuba 399,300
10.Canada 364,900
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My hope... my prayer is that the journalist and his editor that wrote this, are replaced with an H1-B worker. Fair is fair.
Sounds fair to me!
There’s no real shortage of technically qualified workers; American companies want the H1-B program so they can get their labor cheap.
Microsoft, Ford, or Boeing hiring H1-Bs is no different from a contractor hiring wetbacks to build houses. If engineers were paid more, the engineering schools would be running over with applicants.
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