I’m a life-long Democrat, but one aspect of the Democratic party message that has at times bothered me in recent years is the tendency towards protectionism. It was one of the things (among many) that annoyed me about John Kerry’s campaign, and I was somewhat relieved that Obama wielded this axe a bit more lightly during his campaign, at least after Iowa (notice how most of that talk about NAFTA disappeared too?).
During a bad recession with spiralling unemployment, of course, any earlier caution we might have seen from politicians regarding protectionism is going to be in danger. Congressional politicians from both parties are increasingly turning to populist language to ensure their own political survival. And the easiest group to pick on politically in recent years, by both Republicans and Democrats, has been immigrants, since they can’t vote anyway.
As many readers may already be aware, the recent American economic stimulus bill contained explicit language concerning foreign workers in the U.S.:
The stimulus bill contained the Employ American Workers Act, which was sponsored by Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.). They say that they are worried that laid-off Americans struggling to find work are being displaced by foreign junior investment analysts, computer programmers and corporate lawyers who accept a fraction of the pay commanded by Americans.
“This H-1B program is a sweetheart deal for employers, in many instances, to be able to gain cheap labor from abroad,” Sanders, the son of a Polish immigrant, said in a telephone interview. “Immigration made this country great. But ask those American laid-off workers if they want $40,000-a-year engineers from Russia or India taking the place of an American engineer who would earn $80,000 a year. I don’t think anyone is going to tell me with a straight face that they can’t find some of that American talent right here on the unemployment lines.” (link)
Actually, Senator Sanders, I’m perfectly happy to tell you, with a straight face, that American IT companies are deeply dependent on foreign workers, whose positions could not easily be filled by American counterparts. Also, I can assure you that are not thousands of unemployed American software engineers on unemployment because Indian and Russian engineers in the U.S. are getting paid $40,000. Indeed, I’m fairly sure that H-1B engineers from India are getting paid considerably more than $40,000 a year on average.
The clampdown on foreign workers is also occurring in financial institutions, especially those that are getting federal bailout money:
During the past several months, the largest banks in the United States have announced 100,000 job cuts, Sanders said. Those same banks, which are receiving $150 billion in a taxpayer-funded bailout package, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions such as senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers and human resources specialists, Sanders said, citing an Associated Press review of visa applications that the banks filed with the Labor Department.
As the economy worsened last year and employees were laid off, the number of visas sought by the dozen banks in the AP analysis increased by nearly a third, from 3,258 in fiscal 2007 to 4,163 in fiscal 2008.
What do readers make of the growing drift towards protectionism in American political discourse? How do you feel about the “Employ American Workers Act”? Are there effective ways to counter protectionist thinking during a recession? And: have any of these changes affected you or someone you know personally?
As a side note, I have heard some talking heads on TV–I forget who–arguing that in fact one possibly effective way to counter the housing slump might actually be an increase in high-skilled immigration: highly skilled immigrants in well-paying jobs might eventually start buying up all those empty condos everywhere. But that seems like kind of a strange argument to make right now, since, really, it seems like no one is hiring.
Also see: this Forum thread on the Employ American Workers Act at Immigration Voice. And here is an earlier SM post of mine related to the plight of Indian H-1B workers.
It is ridiculous how easy it is to stoke populist outrage at the expense of logic. The total number of H1 workers is around 65,000, which is around 0.2% of the total workforce. Considering that unemployment is around 8.5%, the 0.2% is actually a very small fraction of total unemployment. In related news, Fannie and Freddie actually moved some call center jobs back to the US even though they should really be doing heavy duty cost-cutting.
The fundamental premise behind such misguided protectionism is the implicit assumption that jobs, somehow, are a fundamental right and that they should be allocated based on the policies of senators. In practice though, any job is really the culmination of some kind of competition (that’s how jobs are created, filled and terminated) and the salary that an employee receives is part of this competition. Looking at it that way, the implication of the rhetoric of the Senators above is that the qualified H1-B professionals filling up these positions are too simple, or worse too desperate, to negotiate what their fair-market-value salary is. If indeed these jobs can be filled by such simpletons, perhaps American companies willing to pay $80,000 for jobs that can be filled by such simpletons are terribly managed and need more aggressive cost-cutting.
So if hiring an American is too expensive, the job will just move overseas?
American government will have to deal with this H1-B issue sooner or later. The real money makers in this case are the business executives, folks who announce 10% salary cuts in the ‘base salary’ as that will ‘save jobs’ – and then receive a 45% increase in the yearly bonuses.
The total number of H1 workers is around 65,000, which is around 0.2% of the total workforce.
That is 65000 new visas per year, which is called H1B visa cap. This does not include the J1s and F1-to-H1 status modification. More importantly — once we get in, we don’t go back :). An H1-B visa holder can maintain the status for at least 6 years then after that if he or she has filed for immigrant visa and has reached a stage where the application is in the queue, he/she can stay here until the application is approved.
The problem with too many Republicans is that they wish society looked like it did in the ’50s… The problem with too many Democrats is that they wish the economy did.
Actually, Sulabh, F-1 to H-1 modifications are included in that cap. My question still remains if you would work for a company that paid you 50% of what they would pay an American. That seems to be the core of Sen. Grassley’s argument.
I am all for the US regulating who has the right to live and work in the country. But the quality of the debate that goes into the process of making these guidelines frightens me. It seems that the lawmakers who are writing these have no clue on the existing laws and how dangerous and unfair vague subjective laws can be.
Statements like these are so stupid that I do not even know where to begin. For instance, legally, as per the existing laws prior to this, H-1B cannot be offered less than a US worker for the same job. There are a lot of nuances to this, but when lawmakers make such basic howlers, it makes no sense to go into the nuances.
Ultimately, the US economy is hardly going to be made or broken by a handful of H1-Bs (the tech sector is a different matter). Given that H1-Bs do not have the time or inclination or propbably the numbers, to organize themselves effectively, they are an easy group to target. Obama needs a circus to distract everyone from the miserable failure of the TARP policies, and H1-Bs seem like a good choice to feed to the lions.
Duh. even a half-witted person can figure that out. (By half wits, I am referring to the lawmakers, not Amardeep. It is the lawmaker’s job to know this information, the govt also is responsible for getting the data, so there is no excuse to be this ignorant) I mean, how difficult is it to look up the information? It is available right here http://www.flcdatacenter.com/.
For Instance want to know the a minimum a computer programmer in Edison, NJ is to be paid –$68,080 annual based on 2007 (http://online.onetcenter.org/link/summary/15-1021.00)
Want to find out how many H1s Citigroup asked for in NY — right here along with their rates (more 100+ K jobs than 40K)
BTW most H1-Bs are in too precarious a position to buy a house. Sinking so much money on a (currently) risky investment makes no sense to someone who might be asked to leave everything behind in a flash.
As an H1B worker myself, i find it surprising how the politicians call out H1B holders as some sort of parasites, ignoring their contribution to the economy. H1 workers pay their taxes; start new companies, and provide employment to American workers. How is that a bad thing?
As for replacing the Indian/Russian/Chinese immigrant workers, i doubt American schools are producing that many number of qualified american professionals to take their place.
Not sure protectionism is going to help improve the US economy. If anything it will just lead to increased competition from developing countries once these professionals are shown the door.
Amreekandesi, not to forget that H1B workers pay unemployment insurance & social security taxes (if you are an Indian citizen), the fruits of which they don’t enjoy (if you are H1B without a job, you return to home country & similarly if you are an H1B retiree, you don’t have a legal status to stay on in the US). I am not sure of the impact on disability benefits, but since employment conditions change while on disability that may also have some effect on H1 validity.
in a way this protectionism maybe good for other industries both here and abroad. the banking, financial and law sector career has been hyped too much. will be interesting to see the breakdown of industry/career versus H1B.
will be interesting to see how the democrats handle protectionism versus trade especially when there can be counter protectionism from other trading partners..for e.g. Mexico retaliates
@DDiA – 65,000 is the cap per year, and H-1Bs are valid for next 6 years, so there could be 6 times 65k H-1Bs at any given time, considering the cap has been filled every year. Much more, actually, since many H-1Bs apply for green cards and can extend their visas every year beyond 6 years. But still you’re right to say that’s a small percentage of the American worker population.
But I think we’re missing something in all the above comments. EAWA does not bar hiring H-1B workers per se. It does not cut the 65000 cap. It does not ask companies to fire their existing H-1B workers. All that it says is this: If you (company) has taken tax payer money, you’ve got to make sure you do not hire a foreign worker for a position that’s similar to one from which an American was recently laid off or will be laid off within 90 days. Now how can this be called unfairly protectionist? When the economy is booming and thousands of trained professionals are needed, I agree there is a shortage of Americans to fill those roles and hence requires foreign talent. But in a recession when thousands have been laid off, a large pool of experienced professionals has been created, many of whom are Americans. What’s wrong in asking that new hiring should make use of the Americans in this pool first, before looking for foreign workers?
Now I totally agree that the rhetoric spewed by the two senators is BS. Their original bill barring H-1Bs entirely was protectionist. But the final language passed by the Congress seems to make sense to me.
Not pit H1Bs against minimum wage folk, but what’s the official Sanders/Grassley line on illegal aliens?
Here is Sander’s voting record on immigration: http://www.ontheissues.org/International/Bernie_Sanders_Immigration.htm Unprincipled scumbag. It looks like he is pro illegals and anti legal. So, he is just playing playing it for the votes.
Grassley is at least consistent: Anti -immigration. period. http://www.ontheissues.org/International/Chuck_Grassley_Immigration.htm
Thank you for posting this. I am personally affected by this – I attend a top MBA school in the US, and have an offer to join a top investment bank (was a plum job at the time!) upon graduation this summer. The EAWA has thrown off all of my plans, and I am faced with a lot of uncertainty regarding my employment – lawyers don’t know too much about this either, although they do apologize that I am feeling the brunt of this. Thankfully, the bank has not rescinded any offers, they are exploring options – I’ll just have to see this all play out. One thing I am certain about – all my classmates (American or not) were given the opportunity to interview with this bank but they didn’t get offers, and no American citizen has replaced me at this investment bank (yet).
And no, I’m not cheap IT labor – I will be in a post-MBA Investment Banking position there, and I was to get paid as much as any other American Associate. So, the people who are affected are sadly not who they are portrayed to be (the underpaid worker of a scheming firm?).
While some of your concerns are valid, you are taking a very narrow view of the whole situation. American companies make a good amount of money in Asia and Europe. Also, America is a country which has championed the cause of free movement of capital, goods and labor for as long as one can remember. It is also widely seen as the biggest cause (which does not mean its all true, I am talking perceptions here) of the present crisis. Now, America starts taking steps which restrict the flow of labor, other countries retaliate. In India there was already a rally advocating that people stop buying American goods. Europe needs only half a excuse to look towards protectionism and this gives them that. If this escalates, it would be depression era again. And American companies and thus the US economy would be hurt as much as anyone else when they cannot sell their stuff abroad. The signals sent out to the markets are as important as the steps taken and in this case, the signals being sent out are quite bad.
Second, many students come here, get assistantships and gain great skills in the Universities. If there is a H1-B crackdown, they will simply go back and from an American point of view, its a loss.
Also, I am not so sure that the kinds of jobs H1-Bs cater to (discounting the case of exploitation) are balanced by a purely internal labor supply, even in a recession. There may be some element of truth to it, but short term knee jerk reactions to the situation would mitigate long term benefits.
On the other hand, a lot of people here on H1-B do not invest in houses or spend as much because of the uncertainty. These are generally people with good savings and disposable incomes. Instead if you reduce the uncertainty, they can become helpful in bringing about the recovery.
thats an excellent point. a useful bill in this regard will be to formulate rules that for every country (especially India, China) no new H1B will be issued unless the existing backlog of permanent residency applicants is cleared off. otherwise h1b scheme seems more like a credit card debt to me with virtually zero interest rate excepting perhaps their contribution to the economy,… in fact instead of increasing h1bs to solve the housing slump clearing the backlog will be more beneficial since the exisiting h1b->gc already have jobs.
but i am sure republicans will be up in arms against these proposals…..
Not sure if I understand this correctly. Why does country of origin matter in this case? Even if you have a lot of Indians and Chinese..
Guys, It’s perfectly fine that you support the H1B program. However, posting stuff here probably isn’t going to change people’s minds, since most of the posters here are pro-H1B in the first place.
If you want to effectively reach your target audience, I suggest you go to the anti-outsourcing sites (such as computerworld.com) and argue with people there.
Just my 2 cents.
Incidentally, here’s a discussion in the New York Times blog about immigration policy and foreign workers. It isn’t related to EAWA as such. When you read the expert responses, you see how vastly opposing their claims and perceptions are.
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/do-we-need-foreign-technology-workers/?hp
I think the biggest problem with any such debate is the absence of PERTINENT factual numbers that everyone can agree on. Supporters talk about how immigrants created half of Silicon Valley and companies they created contribute hundreds of billions in revenue. But that doesn’t make for any good defense unless you can show what percentage of H-1B workers who come in each year are actually “best of the best”, “innovators and creators”, “highly skilled”, and actually innovated, let alone created start-ups. Opponents claim immigrants depress wages, but they present no supporting numbers/historic trends to conclusively prove that wages in certain fields (IT for example) were increasing at a much higher rate in the 80s/early 90s before “cheap foreign workers showed up in droves”. All mere claims.
There is just such a huge difference between skilled workers who come to this country legally and work for American wages and workers who take outsourced jobs and stay right where they are, or illegal workers who work for reduced wages under the table. Its insulting that our leaders don’t understand that.
I’m someone who is very concerned about the wage-deflating effect of illegal immigration, and I generally dislike outsourcing (despite the fact that I have two cousins who have benefited from it in India). But this just pisses me off. How do people like my parents, hard-working, extremely skilled people, hurt anyone in this country? They didn’t deflate anyone’s wage. They didn’t steal any “American jobs”. And they raised a family here, and gave back to the communities that took them in.
Its people like us that make up America, as far as I’m concerned. Racists can suck it.
This is exactly the point. There are two broad categories of jobs for which H-1Bs are sought – the first is in highly specialized technical occupations, both at large firms – at the Googles and Microsofts of the world – and in smaller niche firms. The second is the ‘more generic professional job’, whose technical and specialized content is not as significant, and for which there has usually never been a shortage of native-born American aspirants. MBA jobs would probably fall in the latter category. BTW, I have held H-1Bs in both kinds of jobs.
Americans are said to flock to jobs in law and finance precisely because the more technical occupations are thought to have (i) ‘higher skill requirements’, which are effective entry barriers (ii) lower relative salaries (iii) more uncertain career tracks. The substitution of H-1Bs for Americans in such jobs is therefore thought to be (an implicit) win-win-win: the ‘higher skilled’ foreigner works at a lower relative salary in a career track with more uncertain prospects, in jobs that Americans are said not to particularly covet in the first place. This arrangement adds value both across the economy and within a firm, in a way that might actually enable the American to earn a higher salary at the non-H1B occupations. Now, each of these assumptions breaks down in a recession, but let’s leave that aside.
The real issue arises when H-1Bs begun to get hired into professional jobs that Americans themselves covet, in a recession. Then clearly part of the ‘win-win-win’ breaks down, quite possibly all of it. Here the argument that the H-1B is ‘making the same salary as the American’ can be misleading, because when enough H-1Bs are hired, or even if they are in the same labor pool, the number of people seeking those jobs increases, so the average salary could come down, even if it is the same across Americans and H-1Bs. The situation becomes even more complicated, and much less tolerable, when the company in question is a financial company that has accepted taxpayer bailouts, and that has recently laid off Americans in the very job category it is now hiring H-1Bs into.
A definition of ‘protectionism‘ which includes in its ambit even minimal restrictions (no prohibitions yet) for hiring H-1Bs into the second category of occupations is clearly problematic, for it privileges the interests of foreign-born workers (and their employers) over all native born workers. In my view, having such a wide definition of protectionism means there is no space to even in theory buffer native born workers from the impact of recessions in the age of globalization: you can lose your job, and the company can turn right around and hire a foreign-born worker in your place, even as it also accepts a taxpayer bailout. Clearly a more nuanced compromise is needed. In the long term, perhaps a global wage convergence would make such issues moot, but until then, the issue very much matters. So the argument can be over unintended consequences, or over effectiveness of the policy, not over whether some such policy is desirable in the first place. All policies are compromises between competing interests, and most have at least some unintended consequences. So will this one.
But I hope at the end of this, there is some visa reform to enable the following things: (i) The list of occupations H-1Bs can be hired for is more clearly defined (ideally, mainly, or only, IT and R&D workers, outside the vanilla white collar occupations) (ii) The space for continual fudging and conflation of H-1Bs with B-1s (business visitors not supposed to work) and L-1s (genuine intra-company transferees) is brought to an end. This is not an argument for ending H-1Bs, it is just an argument for rationalizing the regulatory guidelines surrounding it, and for better enforcement – things which are, after all, also in keeping with the broader spirit of the times.
Cherry-P — thanks muchly for your clarification on the EAWA in Comment #11. I wasn’t aware that they had softened the restrictions on the number of H-1B in the final bill.
Rookie (#14), thanks for sharing your experience. I have heard a couple of similar stories, including a friend of a friend who went through an extremely trying time at U.S. Customs a couple of weeks ago. The customs officer looked up the company he worked for on the internet during the secondary interview process, and went so far as to actually call the company and ask for evidence that the company couldn’t find a U.S. worker for the same position!
No one is getting the boot. The law does not impact any current H-1B worker. I think the requirements are rather reasonable. With unemployment at 8.5%, why should an American Company which is being loaned money from the American taxpayer get to fire an American worker and get a foreign worker in his place?
Also this is law will have almost no impact on anything. The requirements all have loopholes. The corporate interets get to write these laws and the silly requirement that the job should be given to any American worker with similar qualifications is the same requirements when you give a green card to an alien under EB-whatever category. The applications from American workers are simply trashed.
How about making these companies stop offshoring jobs? These companies are firing American workers in droves while offshoring and outsourcing their jobs. The additional profits are distributed to the top executives. The other workers and the consumers dont see a dime of those savings usually.
At times like these it certainly helps to take an unbiased, objective look at the situation. I am a manager at a large US consulting firm that has a huge presence in India. Over the last few years, reacting to customer pressure on costs (and the unsaid drive for profit from upper management), our firm has setup large offshore centers for client support – I personally setup a few teams. This directly lead to over capacity in the US workforce of our firm and I had the displeasure of laying off several very talented native born Americans (including an ABD). The personal situations of some these people we had to let go is gut wrenching – a guy with 3 very young children and a stay-at-home (home-maker) wife; a very talented guy from a good (popular) tech school who recently bought a house, a guy in his 50s etc.
These affected folks know very well their circumstance has been caused by their work having been sent offshore. Now how will you justify H1Bs in this situation we are currently in, with 8,000 tech jobs having been slashed in 2009, including 4,100 just last month? This is a 1-2 punch to the American worker. I guarantee you that the Indian born worker will feel the same way once he/she moves off their H1B status – I have seen that first hand among friends. We need to take a honest look in the mirror to answer these questions. I see people parroting free market principles they heard somewhere and articulating it as best as they can. But the bottom line is basically common sense stuff – the employers need to demonstrate they have not been able to hire local talent before applying for H1Bs. And companies with such needs are not even asking for bail out money. There is nothing new with the politicians who spew anti-immigration rhetoric. But let us please be honest amongst ourselves first – if not, we are no different from those politicians who embody hypocrisy.
As a comment above said, if you think you have a valid point and want to communicate that, its best done on anti-H1B sites like computerworld.dotcom.
Thank you for posting this. I am personally affected by this – I attend a top MBA school in the US, and have an offer to join a top investment bank (was a plum job at the time!) upon graduation this summer. The EAWA has thrown off all of my plans, and I am faced with a lot of uncertainty regarding my employment – lawyers don’t know too much about this either, although they do apologize that I am feeling the brunt of this. Thankfully, the bank has not rescinded any offers, they are exploring options – I’ll just have to see this all play out
Let me make a reckless prediction. You will get the job. The new law has enough loopholes for Rush Limbaugh to drive through the hole driving Arnold’s hybrid Hummer.
The reason they are acting unsure is because they will re-negotiate your contract and save some bucks. Since this silly legislation was enacted, companies have started renegotiating the contracts with their current H-1B workers even though they are not covered by this legislation.
Everyone in USA is weeping over the possible demise of the current system. Is anyone here celebrating like I am? Let Babylon fall!
But the bottom line is basically common sense stuff – the employers need to demonstrate they have not been able to hire local talent before applying for H1Bs. And companies with such needs are not even asking for bail out money
The employer wont have to demonstrate diddly-squat. The whole thing is a sham.
Let me make a reckless prediction. You will get the job. The new law has enough loopholes for Rush Limbaugh to drive through the hole driving Arnold’s hybrid Hummer.
The reason they are acting unsure is because they will re-negotiate your contract and save some bucks. Since this silly legislation was enacted, companies have started renegotiating the contracts with their current H-1B workers even though they are not covered by this legislation.
Thanks for the prediction (I hope it turns out to be true) – but I already have the job, I just need the blessing of “work authorization”. I am not certain the conservative lawyers representing the firm are going to be able to pull anything off. I am fairly certain that this is not about my pay (the bank has not said a word about any change in compensation), but rather their desire to be law-abiding and not stir any trouble. In all likelihood, there will be another clarification soon issued regarding the EAWA, which will determine if I am totally screwed or only partially. So much for paying SS and Medicare taxes for 3 years and a hefty tuition in this country, and losing the opportunity of a lifetime in return.
So much for paying SS and Medicare taxes for 3 years and a hefty tuition in this country, and losing the opportunity of a lifetime in return.
The legislation needs to be changed to allow SS and Medicare taxes to be refunded to H-1B workers.
Why do politicans and bloggers and commentors alike stress on American, when they say, “American taxpayer.” Last I checked, everyone working legally pays taxes, including H1Bs and all other immigrant workers that work above the table. Add to this, h1Bs pay SS and Medicare taxes, as mentioned by commentors upthread, that they will never benefit from.
They should have an H-1B program to import college professors especially in the economics department of American colleges.
The H1s at educational institutions don’t count towards the annual cap and are not transferable.
when i worked in software labor competition introduced by H1Bs & possibility of outsourcing did have an effect on how one worked and how one negotiated for salary 😉 in the end it means cheaper software for the end user (and perhaps higher profits for capital in the short term before price competition worked that away). OTOH, i don’t like the H1B status and never have. if you want more high skilled labor, increased the quotas for high skilled immigrants and have them be greencard holders! that means that they can negotiate for salary with all the same background conditions as other participants in the labor market. as it is from what i recall (perhaps they changed it since the years i’ve been away from software) there was some aspect of quasi-indentured servitude to H1Bs. they didn’t have the same bargaining power as native workers. there a little bit of grapes of wrath labor bidding to it all.
also, i think it’s totally cool to favor american workers. we pay for americans who aren’t able to pay via medicaid and AFDC and a variety of other entitlements as well as charity. if an H1B is kicked out of the country yes, we lose skilled labor and some costs will go up, but we won’t have to pool communal monies via gov. entitlements. it’s not fair, but then the existence of nation-states is not fair (e.g., compare the wages of unskilled laborers in the USA vs. mexico).
fundamentally i think we should view movement of capital vs. labor as qualitatively different things in a globalized world. we have moral obligations labor that we simply don’t have to capital. labor once enfranchised can vote, and labor has sentiments and feelings which exist outside of the box of economics. there is a lot more “friction” that can arise from movements in labor than capital. of course some of you may be randians who don’t believe there’s a moral obligation, but who cares, you still have to face taxes to pay for other people’s consumption of basic necessities, or you go to jail. welcome to the slave state 🙂
Ardy@17 : Not sure if I understand this correctly. Why does country of origin matter in this case? Even if you have a lot of Indians and Chinese.
Most other countries don’t have such a huge backlog in GC and I am sure most firms that are receiving bailout employ Indians and Chinese as H1Bs. Again it will be very interesting to see the break up of job/industry versus H1Bs (including country of origin) employed to argue factually.
I am. Although with all the fondness for public humiliation in reality TV and greed and decadence on Wall Street, I would say let the Roman Empire fall!
also, people have different interests. it isn’t just politicians being demagogues. gains from trade and immigration differ by sector.* of course one would expect indian americans who are immigrants or the children of immigrants to view these issues differently from an industrial worker in the midwest. if you want to be a thorough utilitarian who doesn’t prioritize bounds of fellow feeling contingent on national borders, just argue for open borders and totally free movements of capital & goods. this would probably result in greater prosperity integrated over the whole human race, but somewhat less for the bottom 1/2 of americans who would probably converge somewhat to the relatively crappier lot of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in most of the world. the main argument against this would be if the american system just collapses if 100 million people move to the states in 10 years, removing the institutional framework driving wealth creation.
A lot of H1 visa holders and especially the F1-H1 visa converters are fakers.
I know countless H1 visa holders who go for 2-3 month training in SAP, QA, business analysis, JAVA and then put 5 years experience on their resume. NJ is full of these Indian consulting companies pay slave labor wages to these folks. For example, the normal rate for a business analyst is about $50hr-$60hr for a US citizen, but these H1’s work for as little as $30hr on W2/Corp-Corp/1099.
razib@ 36: the main argument against this would be if the american system just collapses if 100 million people move to the states in years, removing the institutional framework driving wealth creation
interesting point. i foresee a different social scenario. most labor and manufacturing oriented industry cannot hire foreigners. most industries which cater to the govt and defense contracts (including national labs) have restrictions on employing foreigners and even if they do they will prob give preference to graduates from US univs. Now that leaves a very narrow segment of the wealth creating sector which includes IT, finance that will be able to hire foreign workers. If this sector is well streamlined by categorizing as suggested by ex-H1B@21 and also making green-card as the filter then you can significantly curtail work related immigration that can depress American wages.
65,000 is the cap per year
Extensions are not part of this cap, right? I’m almost embarrassed to reveal how many extensions I’ve had so far, my latest one just got renewed. And the extensions are valid for 3 years – which is the same duration as a ‘new’ H1-B.
most labor and manufacturing oriented industry cannot hire foreigners.
? this isn’t true, is it? i mean if they move to the USA of course they can be hired! (granted as you note there are exceptions and preferences in gov. & defense sectors) what i’m trying to get at above is that there are two extreme positions in terms of protection vs. openness in capital & labor. what i get tired of sometimes are those who characterize people on the other side of the line that they create as “protectionist” or “open borders” or “globalist” when most people draw particular lines based on values & self-interest. IOW, there are many people who think 3 million legal immigrants coming into the USA per year is acceptable, but would balk at 30 million per year. similarly, there are those who are OK with credit card companies being based out of south dakota and delaware and charging south dakota and delaware rates, but who would object if the same legal policy on interests applied to companies which relocated outside of the united states with even looser usury laws than those states. those who take the extreme positions have it easy because they don’t have to elaborate in detail their mix of policies because they don’t want a mix. most people, but leave the mix unqualified and simply work with imprecise labels which serve more for rhetoric than illumination.
PAD .. I interviewed with a company for a management training / leadership program in a large NY based company right after my Masters. They were somewhat selective though not terribly so — I got the position after a third round of interviews. In the interviews, they had promised sponsorship, etc. between the interviews, though, 9/11 occurred. The visa policies changed across the industry. They certainly wanted me — the offer / joining date, etc came after 9/11 — but I could not join because of the visa policy. Needless to say it hit my career rather hard.
At this point saving a few bucks off the compensation package is the last thing on the companies mind (and is probably illegal to boot). The problem is that the very same vagueness and loopholes you talked about actually work against the H1B, because it makes it easy for any Tom, Dick and Harry to sue the company. Even during layoffs most companies hire, but they run a higher risk of being sued by a employee they would have laid off anyway, when they hire H1s. If they had laid off the same person and instead hired a citizens (even if the alien was much better qualified). From the view of a large company it is often an unacceptable risk and they make blanket policies. Clear easily quantifiable guidelines, and less arbitrary rules are much better for a H1 B .
Rookie I knew someone who was in the same boat as you. When the company found that they could not get a visa for him, they instead gave him a position in Japan , and said that they would try again in a year’s time. You could explore the same possibility with your recruiters/ mentors — this should give you a leg up in your career.
Please do this. I’d campaign for you to become a Congressman. 🙂
As a H1-B myself I can say that working in US is not a right. It is a privilege. It is Ok for the Americans to kick us out if they do not have enough jobs.
Indian graduates have had things easy, get a cheap government subsidised education in India, come to US for their grad. school with assistantships and directly get a job with good salary. With the H-B boom it is even better, you don’t even need to take TOEFL / GRE etc. just have a few years of experience in an Indian company and come thru a consultant to the US and find a job.
Compare that with an American kid who (I guess) comes out with a 200,000$ student loan on his/her head and need to get a job and work on the job before he/she pays off the loans. If they buy a home (which almost every one does) they have to pay off their mortgages too.
Though it sounds unfair to kick H1-Bs out during a recession, I think it is reasonable.
This worker policy is also very similar to the protectionist trade policies we are seeing as of late – which only EXTENDED the Great Depression. Countries’ GDP grows during times of trades; hence the U.S.’ steady growth over a one hundred year period, and China and India’s recent explosion.
And in terms of competitiveness, I saw a segment on Fareed Zakaria’s show that included an interview with the Canadian PM expressed Canada’s interest in RECRUITING foreign talent. I have heard Germany is implementing those policies as well, though I don’t know if it has been cited extensively. Ultimately, our loss will be another country’s gain. Way to blow it legislators.
If you can’t tell, I am very frustrated w/ the Dems as of late, and I’m a registered Democrat!
Granted, 50% of the H1 are fake but still they are intelligent than most Americans (whites, blacks, browns – I’m including the ABCD people). I’m not in love with Obama, unlike the 90% of the people that come to this website, even though he is doing some really good things but things like these just show inexperience and short sightedness. Most of the people that have lost their jobs were not competing with H1s. Most of these people were in sales/retail and they dont have jobs because they were leeches and once the hosts curbed their expenses, the leeches died. For example realtors, obviously you’re not going to be making any money because you’ve piggy backed all life and now theres no piggy and now you want H1 people to go back to their country because obviously you, who did a psych would fit wonderfully well in the IT industry. I’ll be honest, I love this country, I’ve been here since I was 16, paid my way through school/university(which was 10k per semester for me while other people paid 1500) and almost 60% of all my memories are here but I cant handle stupidity and I wont be thinking twice to move from here, its just another country for me but before I do that, the 60, 70K i give in taxes every year, I want that back because I dont want to nurse this stupid generation here. Why doesn’t the whole first generation move back and see what happens here, shall we? In a bad economy, what do you need, do you need people that are skilled and working and contributing or do you need to kick them out and maybe hope and all their jobs wont go away and as a result the economy doesnt tank even further. I feel really weird pointing this out but it seems that the republicans are right, this country is looking more like Red China every passing day.
“Granted, 50% of the H1 are fake but still they are intelligent than most Americans…”
Superiority Complex Alert! Please keep in mind that Nigerians are the most educated group of immigrants that come to the USA:
USCIS just announced that they are still accepting H-1B applications for the 2009 cycle…..last year it closed out on Day 1.
Is that because of Anti-Immigrant sentiments or just pure economic woes?
The bill is complete BS. as someone who is constantly looking for great engineers to hire, we still cannot find enough qualified applicants for the positions we have open.
That being said, it IS easier to hire domestically than it used to be, given the slowdown in the economy. That’s reflected in the news out of the federal government this morning regarding this year’s H-1B applications. In most years, the US CIS announces that they are accepting applications for H-1Bs, and they get overwhelmed by applications, and use a lottery system to decide who actually gets a visa. IN recent years, only 1/2 to a 2/3 of the eligible pool win the H-1B lottery. This year is different.
USCIS (the new INS) announced today that they are still accepting applications for both regular H-1B and advanced degree H-1Bs. That means that they haven’t hit their quota yet. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
…a problem with ABD protectionists claiming its not protectionism when it affects american workers is that hundreds of thousands of Indian and other developing world agricultural, retail and workers in numerous other sectors have been going through this same wrenching process of job loss and dislocation when multinational corporations entered their countries with their advanced technology and lobbying and graft, and disrupted huge sectors of indigenous economies…at the time they were smugly told by global corporates and native “liberalizers” that it was the price for the inevitable globalization,and to oppose it was retrogressive….I remember it was the communists in India who would fight these, but most of the press and upper middle classers would just parrot the line of liberalization and globalization….and then I see this massive reflexive protectionism in America to the relatively miniscule threat by H1Bs and cant help feeling that we (as in India and other developing countries who were so eager to hop on to the Clintonwagon of globalization)have been had….many of us who at the time who reflexively opposed the socialists would be sobered by this self-preserving and ultimately hypocritical reaction in the mother of captalist economies….arundhati roy was right all along!
USCIS (the new INS) announced today that they are still accepting applications for both regular H-1B and advanced degree H-1Bs. That means that they haven’t hit their quota yet. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
In 2006, the advanced degree h-1bs were open till July.