I'm an employer with an H-1B employee and this auction sounds a lot better than the arbitrary nature of the current system. Right now, most smaller companies can't consider foreign workers, even if they're the best or only fit for the job because it takes about a year to get them into the country (only one H-1B lottery/year), there's about a 50% chance of winning the lottery.
What kind of company can afford to hire a foreigner who, if their coin flip comes up heads, will start work in a year? The answer is transnational companies who can put the foreigner to work in his/her home country and consulting companies who are scooping up cheap labor for positions to be determined later.
An auction (or simply a high fee, say $10k) would:
reduce uncertainty to the employer,
bias positions toward higher value ones,
allow the employee to immediately move to the USA (rather than having a once-per-year lottery followed by 6 months to collate the lottery results)
help fund our national deficit by bringing in cash instead of forcing companies to hire lots of immigration lawyers
By the way, employees who are brought in on an H-1B are free to move to another employer. This is intended to prevent the abuses described in this forum.
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I'm an employer with an H-1B employee and this auction sounds a lot better than the arbitrary nature of the current system. Right now, most smaller companies can't consider foreign workers, even if they're the best or only fit for the job because it takes about a year to get them into the country (only one H-1B lottery/year), there's about a 50% chance of winning the lottery.
What kind of company can afford to hire a foreigner who, if their coin flip comes up heads, will start work in a year? The answer is transnational companies who can put the foreigner to work in his/her home country and consulting companies who are scooping up cheap labor for positions to be determined later.
An auction (or simply a high fee, say $10k) would:
By the way, employees who are brought in on an H-1B are free to move to another employer. This is intended to prevent the abuses described in this forum.