Posted on 02/19/2004 7:59:31 PM PST by hotdogjones
Reforms demanded as H-1B visa limit reached Last modified: February 18, 2004, 12:27 PM PST By Ed Frauenheim Staff Writer, CNET News.com
The federal government has received enough H-1B visa applications to meet this year's cap, prompting one business group to call for reform of the controversial guest worker program.
No new petitions for first-time employment in 2004 will be accepted starting Wednesday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said this week. The cutoff means that the annual cap of 65,000 new workers has been reached less than five months into the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.
The news prompted a quick response from American Business for Legal Immigration, a coalition of 200 corporations, universities, research institutions and trade associations.
"Our goal is to keep the U.S. economy growing and keep U.S. jobs in America. Sometimes this requires hiring a limited number of highly educated foreign professionals to fill technical or specialized positions," Sandy Boyd, chair of the group, said in a statement on Wednesday. "Reaching the 2004 visa limit less than halfway through the fiscal year is clear evidence that the system needs to be fixed."
The H-1B visa program allows skilled foreign workers, such as programmers, into the United States for up to six years. U.S. employers do not have to attest that they sought U.S. workers to fill the job before applying for a visa, but they are supposed to pay the prevailing wage to the guest worker. The cap does not apply to institutions of higher education or related nonprofit groups, or to nonprofit research groups or governmental research organizations.
Many H-1B visas go to technology professionals. One-third of the approved visa applications in 2002 were for system analysts or programmers, though that figure was down from half of all approved visa petitions in 2001, according to CIS.
Congress raised the annual cap for H-1B visas to 195,000 for 2001, 2002 and 2003. In the wake of a recession and major technology industry layoffs, Congress let the cap drop to 65,000 for this year.
Critics say the program hurts U.S. workers by taking jobs away from them and undercutting wages. The use of H-1B and L-1 guest-worker visas by companies based in India and elsewhere has come under scrutiny for allegedly fueling the movement of technology jobs overseas.
Technology industry leaders, though, defend the H-1B program as a tool to keep U.S. employers competitive. Backers of the guest-worker visas warn that even more IT work would move offshore if they were eliminated.
The American Business for Legal Immigration group on Wednesday suggested that foreign graduates from U.S. advanced degree programs in math, engineering and computer science should be allowed to remain in the country. "U.S. employers should have access to masters and Ph.D. holders whose education was paid, at least in part, through U.S. tax dollars," Boyd said. "It is counterproductive for the U.S. to train foreign scientists and engineers and then send them home to compete against American businesses."
Another proposal that may affect the H-1B visa program is President George W. Bush's plan for a new temporary worker program. Comments from a Bush administration official indicated the proposal may cover high-tech jobs.
Reaching a limit is bad? I thought that was the purpose of a limit in the first place.
"Job training is the responsibility of employees, not employers."
For top wages I do believe that the employee should take on a large part of self-training, or you will work as an assistant to someone who is better trained. It's not your employers job to send you to trade school or college. If retraining is necessary because the industry is changing and your employer wants to assist in your training fine, but the main responsibility is yours.
Education is different from job training. Education is everyone's responsibility, especially parents. Job training, which many schools are switching to because more employers see it as yet another expense they shouldn't be burdoned with, is very site specific. School is for learning the basics, the fundamentals. Job training has to be done on the job since every business applies science, technology, business methodologies, etc. in a different way. There is no way you could learn everything you need to know for a particular job in school, yet this is the claim of businesses that seek to bring in employees from overseas. So, of course they are always going to be able to say there is a shortage of 'qualified' workers when everyone knows ther isn't. What we are seeing is nothing more than businesses lobbying gov't to make life easier than them. Instead of democrats subsidizing workers, we have republicans subsidizing employers. 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
LOL!!!
If he didn't, it MIGHT mean he learned SOMETHING from the Alien Invasion!!!
The end result of our long term balance of trade deficit. We have to sell them something to make our dollars (the dollars they got from selling us cheap things) good. It looks like, with the loss of manufacturing production, we are selling them our government.
Of course that is not all we are selling them; ownership of our (formerly) American companies, our industrial infrastructure, etc. seems to be high on the list as well.
In many jobs, working as an assistant for someone better trained is the way a person gets trained.
Boy oh boy, you got that one right Sandy. But it doesn't need fixing in the way you think it does.
BUMP! Word for word what I intended to say!
Really? /sarcasm
How many people do you know who have a job actually will get off their butt and take an extra night course or get a second part-time job that is more challenging than their own with the realized intention that they will actually learn more that will be usefull on their own job and will lead to a pay raise?
Most people seem to find this comfort spot and then stop learning. The one thing they don't ever do is quit bitching about --Fred got promoted, I've got more time with the company than he does--I haven't had a raise since the cows went home--boy, that new kid is a wiseass, he thinks he can tell me how to do my job, I've been at that machine for 15 years. Who the hell does he think he is?
Expecting your employer to select you for training when he could much easier hire a competitors employee away from them and get it all in one bag. Experience, education, job skills and advanced knowledge in that particular field and perhaps a few others.
I know far too people who continually bitch but refuse to take it upon themselves to become a better employee or even refuse to go to a job fair to see what the latest is on the market. Afraid they'll miss their weekend football games, I suppose. These are the people for whom trade unions fill the bill. Security, raises, company paid training, medical benefits and they didn't have to do a thing except show up and work only as hard as the guys beside them.
Only one time in my life have I ever had a man come in a say, "I need a job today, not tomorrow, right now.
I'll work for you for one week for no pay to give you a chance to see if I know the skills I say I have. If you see that I'm not as good as your top men when you let me go, you promise to tell me where I failed.
I hired the man on the spot and eventually sold the company to him.
By the way he lied on his resume. He left out more than most try to stretch. Unusual for a thirty year old man.
In theory...in theory. But not in reality. The reality is this:
(1) The "prevailing wage" is defined in bands for general positions. This means they can pay 100% of the H1-B's the absolute bottom wage for the the band.
(2) They can "define down" the title of the position to use a lower wage band. And they do.
(3) There is no checking up on them. Basically, they can declare a position to be whatever title they want. No one comes and tells them -- you wrongly allocated this title. Therefore, there is no sanction on this behavior.
(4) Many, if not most, H1-B's work as contractors. Thus the company that hires them doesn't hire "them", they have a contract with a contracting firm. Therefore, none of the above (1) to (3) apply, because contracts are not subject to the same criteria as employees. I can create a contract opportunity tomorrow, contract someone for 3 months at 1/3 the wage of what I would pay an employee, and keep extending the contract. Since the person filling the position is not an employee, I can pay what I want. If there is a violation of the law...well, heck, it isn't ME that is violating it, it is the contracting firm. Which, by the way, is often a small 10 - 20 person body shop which flies under the radar, or a foreign owned firm anyway.
So...the theory and the reality do not correlate. I speak from real world, practical experience on this.
You are completely missing the point. Education is not the same as training. Education is an individual's own responsibility and mainly consists of fundamentals and generalities. Training is specific to what a company is doing or trying to do, and therefore the responsibility of companies. This is a cost of doing business that cheapos like you are trying to pass on to everyone else. Not surprising, you don't think you should invest in your employees or your own country, at least you are consistant. Like a carrot you dangle it out there with an increasing list of things you need to know to get the job. The sad thing is that if someone is dumb enough to pay for training, they will often find after they get the job that these companies are looking for certain skills because they have no clue what they are or have badly botched their implementation.By the way he lied on his resume. He left out more than most try to stretch. Unusual for a thirty year old man.
Sounds like you got what you deserved. You paid zero and got zero back. This isn't really about money for you, is it?
Best observation on this thread.
He later told me he didn't want to appear over qualified to join the corporation.
"Sounds like you got what you deserved. You paid zero and got zero back. This isn't really about money for you, is it? "
Did you read, "I hired the man on the spot and eventually sold the company to him.
He was promoted to General manager in two years, with a little assistance he was able to assume most of the CFO responsibilities. He was later promoted to COO. After five years in that position he came to me with the purchase proposal. Total time employed, which included standard benefits and of course drawing a substantial salary, 14 years, nine months.
During this time he gained three or four degrees and personally paid to go to at least three short term trade schools that I knew of. I reembursed him these costs in the form of additional performance bonuses.
The man made more money for me than I could have ever expected from any man who just walked in the door without an appointment to meet with me.
You forgot
Liar
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