Posted on 08/16/2010 12:13:31 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Slamming the critics of H-1B, a US think-tank and corporate America have suggested removal of Congressional cap on this popular work visa programme and allow markets to determine number of skilled foreign workers eligible to work in the country.
"The best policy for the United States is one that sides with freedom and innovation, not restriction. It is a policy where the H-1B cap is either eliminated or set high enough that we can let the market decide on the number of new skilled foreign nationals who work in America each year," a report said.
The 81-page report titled "Regaining America's Competitive Advantage: Making our Immigration System Work" has been jointly prepared by US Chamber of Commerce, which is the top representative body of the American businesses, American Council on International Personnel, an eminent think-tank.
US PresidentBarack Obama on Friday signed into law a new 'Border Security Bill' proposing a steep hike in some categories of H-1B and L-1 visa fees which is expected to badly hurt Indian IT firms which may have to shell out an additional USD 250 million annually for the next five years.
"The best policy would ease the way for employers to sponsor high skilled individuals for green cards by exempting from labour certification and current employment-based immigrant quotas many who now languish in 6 to 20 year queues," the report said.
"Allowing top talent who graduate from US universities to gain a green card directly will help US employers retain the world's leading future innovators," the report said.
The report has come out with some very interesting finding about H-1B visa programme, according to which popular foreign work visa has been a key factor in US' competitiveness and its economic growth.
Who is in a better position to determine which employees are most likely to make Apple, Amazon or other US companies successful? Is it critics of immigration, government bureaucrats, or the companies themselves?" the report said.
Findings of this report show that leading US companies cite the role played by highly educated foreign nationals in the success of the organisation.
Noting that the critics argue US has too much talent entry of high skilled foreign nationals should be blocked, the report says real immigration-related problem is that many talented people have not been able to stay in US after graduation because of low quotas for H-1B visas and employment-based green cards.
"H-1B visas are a large source of scholarship money for US students, with H-1B training and scholarship fees levied on each petition (and renewal) having funded more than 53,000 math and science college scholarships for US students through the National Science Foundation," it said.
"There is little evidence high skilled foreign nationals on H-1B visas are in general paid less than their American counterparts," the report said.
The report said critics who insist H-1B professionals are hired to "save money" fail to note that in addition to legal requirement to pay H-1B visa holders higher than prevailing or actual wage paid to US workers, employers must pay significant legal and government fees.
The American Council on International Personnel estimates combined H-1B and green card sponsorship costs (government/legal fees) can exceed USD 35,000 for one person.
"Critics also ignore that the labour market is global and if US employers were interested only in lower labour costs they would shift all their work overseas," it said.
Read more: India not taking American jobs: US Chamber - International Business - Business - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/India-not-taking-American-jobs-US-Chamber/articleshow/6319071.cms#ixzz0wnUxK4jI
don’t get me started.....
The US Chamber of Commerce is more like the Anti-American Collective of Communists
If Indians are being hired instead of Americans....Indians are taking jobs from Americans.
Figures you get such stupidity from an Anti-American Globalist organization. In saner times this group would be shut down, and its leadership tried and executed for treason.
Of course, Liberal Globalist nutjobs will be coming out of the woodwork to defend this seditious group
I call bullshit. I've been in the IT business for twenty-three years and I've SEEN it happen. Know how they do it? Trickery.
One example from a former employer: They wanted to hire a database programmer. Most of the other people in the office who could do that work were pay grade 13 (senior) or 14 (lead). The job was listed, as all such H-1B jobs had to be, but it was listed at pay grade 10 (junior). The job's tasks and breadth of responsibility were comparable to someone several pay grades higher...but that didn't matter. The company could say, "See? We're paying this imported grade 10 junior programmer the same as all of our American grade 10 junior programmers!" Perfectly legal.
}:-)4
“The best policy” would be to train our kids in colleges around the country instead of making liberals out of them and teaching them to rely on the government.
Bankers and Corporate CEO’s wonder why Americans hate their guts. They haven’t got a clue. Well when they and their families are lined up in front of a revolutionary firing squad, maybe they will get it.
That time is coming, although it won't qualify as "saner".
A lot of the company’s I’ve worked at wouldn’t hire H1-B’s because they were too expensive. It’s about $20,000 grand in legal costs up front. What I think is costing more job is outsourcing them overseas.
The irony here is, I work for a company that’s an outsource provider. I coordinate the work of people who work in India, and many of them get the chance to come here on various temporary work visas. Virtually all of them are polite, pleasant, and work their asses off. Most of them are, technically, comparable to domestic workers. I have no hatred for people taking advantage of an opportunity to come here legally and work—and trust me, H-1B workers tend to end up crammed like illegals into small apartments and get worked like field slaves for the most part.
My problem isn’t so much with the whole concept behind the H-1B and similar visas. It’s twofold: (a) Why are we bringing large numbers of them in when the unemployment rate in engineering and technology is catastrophic among domestic workers; and (b) Why do we have a system that basically indentures the worker to a company that can abuse the hell out of them at will?
}:-)4
H1-B’s are transferable. If Company A finds a an H1-B worker at Company B, they can hire them, if they are willing to transfer the H1-B Visa. Company A doesn’t even need to apply for a new Visa. Once company I worked with stopped hiring H1-Bs, because they spent $20,000 each to hire two, and then they left for other jobs after a few months. That means the company was out $40,000 and only got a few months of work from it.
It would appear that economic illiteracy is again on the rise.
i can attest to the fact that foreign tech workers are FAR less expensive than Americans. i was the CTO of a dutch company with development offices in estonia. i had normalized then doubled the salaries of the people in estonia when i arrived. we would typically work 60 hrs/wk. the lowest paid cost about $250/mon. the most expensive.. $2000/mon. the average, $500-750/mon.
American developers cost about $5000-12000/mon, depending where you are located.
i could have found cheaper in russia, the philippines, or china.
anyone saying Americans can compete on that playing field is either complicit or ignorant.
One serious problem is that not nearly enough U.S. citizens get educated in areas like Computer Science. For example, the majority of students in MS and PhD programs in CS are foreign born. Too few U.S> citizens want to get educated in those areas.
Impose tariffs on H1-B visas. They are a form of foreign trade, and should be subject to tariffs like any other type of imported product or service.
But you are talking about outsourcing. Which, I think is the much bigger problem.
My wife worked as a secretary for an immigration lawyer for a couple of years in South Carolina. He was bringing people in on more specialist stuff than just H-1Bs; there’s other different ones out there for highly specialized tech workers, PhD-level types. The expense that those companies had to eat to get those people was crazy. The guy made a killing. And the worker had to fill out insane amounts of paperwork and jump through ridiculous government hoops, then wait months and months. One form not filled out properly could crash the whole thing and he’d have to start over, with more months of waiting.
We’ve got a problem with illegal immigration, no doubt about that. But honestly, our legal immigration system is pretty screwed up too. It needs a top-down overhaul. It’s possible to crack down on illegals and protect our economy, and still make it possible for the best and the brightest who want to come here to do so to everyone’s benefit.
}:-)4
Joe Stack was a crazed murderer who flew a small plane into a IRS office, killing himself and an IRS employee. He left a suicide note that blamed tax code 1706 for destroying his life. While I hate referencing suicide notes, and take them as outright lies, by default, in this case I understand Joe's frustration. 1706 banned a wonderful, joyous and productive way of working. It is the Nanny Rent-seeking state at it's most niggardly and hobbling. Killing the golden goose for a few small eggs.
The bigger effect of 1706 is that it EXCLUDES Americans from the same pool of jobs that H1-B goes after. How does that work in practice? The green-card is a chain on the H1-B employee being sold as contract laborer by a staffing firm into a corporation that needs term technical labor. The H1-B is both cheaper and more loyal than independent Americans contractors.
If 1706 was eliminated, top-notch Americans would immediately return to the tech pool, and technology leadership would quickly return to the US.
The economic value of 'freebooters' -- independent mercenary-motive persons is stupendous. 1706 eliminated that.
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