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Microsoft & Intel Get a Pass On Higher H-1B Fees
theodp writes "Criticizing companies that outsource high-paying American jobs, Senator Charles Schumer described Indian IT company Infosys as a 'chop shop'. (Nine Indian companies accounted for 20,000 H-1B visas as of 2007. In 2008, Infosys held 4,500 of the visas; the number was down by a factor of 10 in 2009.) The comments came as the Senate scrambled to fund the $600M Mexican Border Security Bill by hiking application fees for H-1B and L-1 visas. The Senate measure increases H-1B visa fees by $2,000 per application on firms that have 50% or more of their employees on this visa. Schumer pointed out that the bill would not affect high-tech companies such as Intel or Microsoft 'that play by the rules and recruit workers in America,' although they are among the biggest beneficiaries of the H-1B program."
why do the words Intel and Microsoft just not sound right sitting next to "Play by the rules"?
FTFS: ``The Senate measure increases H-1B visa fees by $2,000 per application on firms that have 50% or more of their employees on this visa.''
And Microsoft and Intel evidently are below this 50% limit. As far as I can tell, this isn't Microsoft and Intel "getting a pass", as the title states. No company is being singled out here. It doesn't matter who you are, what matters if you have 50% or more of your employees on H-1B visa.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
And why does it make sense to tax legal immigration to fight illegal immigration? As if legal immigration causes illegal...
I can already see smaller companies going to court to claim that they are being unfairly burdened by the higher cost.
Right or wrong this is going to cause some fur to fly.
If 50%+ of your employees are H1-B's, I would suggest that your business model is not viable in the United States.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Shouldn't we be taxing H1-B applications to increase funding for local schools? After all, a big reason why workers come over on the program is because we genuinely lack enough skilled labor to meet our needs at reasonable price levels. Having come through the California school system myself, I'm a bit shocked that computers can add.
Taxing companies that bring over immigrant workers to pay for border patrol paranoia seems foolish. Tax them to help increase local talent levels. Or require the people to become permanent citizens, thereby permanently increasing the local talent levels.
The ______ Agenda
This is just spin to try and make MS look like the bad guys getting special treatment. The reality of the situation is that if companies hire a majority of American (meaning either citizen or resident alien) employees then they don't pay the extra fee. MS and Intel were noted in the article as tow companies that "play by the rules" and hire a majority of American workers, but they were not given special dispensation.
My guess is the logic is twofold:
1) It is to help protect American jobs and encourage companies to hire local. After all if it costs more to hire H-1B employees, then it is not as attractive a proposition.
2) To derive the funding for the measure from a relevant source. The measure deals with immigration, so companies that bring in the most immigrants get to shoulder the burden. While it isn't a direct thing (since the bill is about southern border security) it is still related.
As I've been the beneficiary of an H-1B with Microsoft, I know very well that MS also does a good job at sending H1-B permit holders back home after 1-2 years, before they get a green card. They actually paid for my 1-way ticket back to Europe. I'd be interested to see what is the proportion of H-1B visa holders who end up staying permanently in the US and which company hired them.
This is just protectionism - why shouldn't American companies be able to hire whoever they want?
We cannot altogether make the H-1 visa so difficult that we stop getting the adequate staff. At the same time there needs to be some preference be given to local Talent.
This is a tragic industry trend. I work at a company where about 75% of all developers are HB1 visa holders. These companies are looking for 'instant' workforces that they can bring along and dismantle when a project ends. They also like to work these people like crazy, as they will only be around for a few years. They can work hard for a few years and go back to their country with more money maybe to buy a house or get married. As for HB1 visa holders being cheaper, perhaps a little bit when it comes to health care, etc. I think employers like that they can demand even more out of these folks.
My (now former) company simply opened multiple large IT ffices in places like Gurgaon, Mumbai and Noida, so they don't have to get H1B workers. (They were first opened as BPO offices.) American workers are slowly laid off (always in small numbers every few months) or lost by attrition, new workers are hired in those Indian offices and work for the Indian subsidiary of that company. Those offices have grown by leaps and bounds since they were first opened in 2002-3ish. So that company doesn't "outsource" anything or get any H1Bs. Whether or not that's a dirty trick is another discussion. Everyone will have their opinions.
I would say that any H1B in this economy is pretty frustrating if just based on perception (and perception tends to be reality...); I guess I just don't believe there aren't enough American workers to do those jobs.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
Yes, this is crazy. There are more than "11 million" illegal* Hispanic immigrants to US. The logic is, that by raising the fees for H1B, more money can be raised to control the immigration at the borders. There is nothing wrong with that, as every country has the right to determine the cost of its visa applications. But then is it logical?
The "total" number of H1B's has been 65,000. Out of this, only 20,000 applications got filled last year. And most of these applications are by people who are educated, English-speaking graduates. It does need some qualifications to get into companies like Intel, Microsoft or Infosys, be it any part of the world.
I am wondering what is more harmful to US? Is it those 60,000 underpaid IT-coolies who almost always have a bachelors or masters degree in their hand, or the millions of almost illiterate immigrants who cannot speak English, and out of which "many of them" rely on not-so-legal means of livelihood in US.
I visited a friend in Westchester, NewYork and found it funny that many people there could/would not speak English. It was even more idiotic that many of them had 5 kids, as US government provides child-support for each of them. This poor friend of mine is a Chinese national with a PhD degree who works as a researcher on an H1B, but it was ironic that his wife cannot legally work here even though she has a bachelors from a top university in China.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa
So if you went to school to become a nurse, but now the employers are importing them the Philippines, you should go back to school to become what, a programmer? After figuring out employers are just importing programmers, what do you, go back to school to become an accountant? But that won't be safe either. Maybe the only good thing to train for is college professor.
In the medieval system you advocate, the middle class disappears because there is no hope for having a middle class job. Some few people become super-rich, and most Americans become poorer and poorer until we look any third world country. In essence, you say we should give up 70 or 80% of our income so we can become a poor unstable country with all chaos that goes with that. I think it is a bad deal for us. Yeah, selfish, but when did it become our duty to impoverish ourselves?
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
A couple of points here as I'm working in the US on a H1-B, just so you know how things look from my perspective.
Why an American company would want to hire H1-B holders instead of citizens:
- Contractors are cheaper (No need for 401K, benefits etc etc)
- Contractors are easily expendable (If, Heavens forbid, we have another meltdown like 2008)
- The American company can plan inaccurately and dial the contractor workforce up or down based on budgets/company or project performance. You can basically tweak your bottom line by controlling the contractor cost. Its a luxury and has made people lazy and almost incapable of being able to accurately estimate work.
Sad truths:
- Not all H1-B visa holders are doing things which Americans themselves can't
- Many H1-B holders are poorly skilled (too bad there's no technical interview at the port of entry)
What America/ American companies can do:
- Some one mentioned 67.3% if Infosys revenues come from the NA region - care to check how much of that is from the B&FS space? Fix the Financial system. It is shamelessly bloated and is driving inflation for everyone else.
- The education system is too expensive & not being rigorous enough & is disconnected with industry. Where I go, not going to college (albeit lower standards on average) is not an option even for my maids kids (Yes, they can scrape through financially)
- Fact: The youth here that do go to college spend so much for it, have almost none of the issues we have to contend with in developing countries (comparitively speaking) & still don't produce enough per dollar to match us. Otherwise, why the hell wouldn't an American company hire an them instead of me?
Earlier generations Indians wanted to come to the US and probably settle down. In my case (and others in my generation), you can send me back. I'd be more than happy to go back to India and be with my family. The standard of living is not very different plus its my own country. I'm just here because my company sent me to do some work. And my company itself has better margins when I work from India, FYI. (Please note this discussion is NOT about offshoring work so I won't get into that)
the H1Bs are the ones you want. That and the special visas for artists and extremely rich people. The moral problem with these special visas is not at the receiving country's end, it is with the drain on talent and capital that it places on the originating country. Unless, say, India benefits from returning citizens with valuable foreign work experience it strikes me that India has more to lose than the US in this transfer of labor.
It strikes me that the "problem" is how to keep and feed huge numbers of US citizens that are not in this league professionally. The problem to my mind is not so much that there are only so many highly-skilled tech jobs around as that there are fewer and fewer productive things for people that lack high-end skills to do. If we are looking for a way to fully employ America and maintain a strong middle class (ie, what passes for socialism here) then we need to look for solutions for Americans in the bottom 50% of qualification and not worry about a few thousand high-end earners.
For the bottom 50%, H1Bs look like a winning proposition to me because they assume their burden of the tax base.
Nullius in verba
A US company can hire an H1B even when a US worker is available. This happens all the time. US workers are frequently required to train their H1B replacements.
This has a very harsh "chilling effect" on aspiring tech workers. Why train for a job when you're just going to replaced by a cheaper H1B?